While poor features can ruin a video service, great features, by themselves, cannot guarantee success, according to Brett Sappington, senior director of research, Parks Associates.
Speaking in a presentation at Broadband World Forum entitled Making money in the new world of video, Brett Sappington, he said that there had been a rush to OTT in the last few years. In the US, for instance, there were 29 established and five new services launched in 2011. By 2015 those figures had risen to 65 and 33 respectively and now there are over 120 OTT services in the US, plus a further 30-40 in Canada.
What was important to note was the adoption of multiple (2+) OTT services in the US among all broadband households and how this was growing. There was a significant jump in such adoption on Q4 2015.
Sappington spoke at some length about the different approaches operators take to OTT. For instance, Dish Network opts for a skinny bundle service tier, while BT, Virgin Media and Cablevision prefer OTT partnering. Then there is the “Netflix Killer” approach, launching services similar to Netflix. Examples include Canada’s Shaw + Rogers and Bell Canada, though Shomi, operated by the former, closed only two weeks ago.
It should also be noted that there is a return to TV, which is still the most used screen to watch specified OTT services.
Listing success factors for OTT services, Sappington said they include content; business model for broad accessibility; early to market/endurance; available of preferred devices; exceed UX expectations; and scaling of live TV/events.
Asked about the prospects for consolidation in the OTT market, he said that some was already being seen. However, in the SVOD space there was more attrition than consolidation.
