Over-the-top an afterthought?

OTT (over-the-top) seems to be the buzz word of late and broadcasters everywhere are jumping onto the multi-screen services bandwagon and burning the midnight lamp figuring out how to monetise these services. What once seemed to be too small a business is now a reality which can only be ignored at one’s own peril.

The big question is: How do we have two separate but seemingly competing business models and platforms without one cannibalising the other? Do we have a separate team handling the broadcast TV service and another experimenting with OTT? Or do we upskill the broadcast team to think beyond TV screens? Should long-form content stay on TV and the other ‘not so premium’ content go to OTT services? How do we protect our broadcast TV share?

The answer is, you can no longer protect your TV share on TV alone! Look at where your consumers are heading. TV audiences will not care if you have the best content on TV or on your OTT platforms. They only care about getting it at their convenience, in their own time and according to their lifestyles. If you are not where they want you to be, they will give their attention to someone who is there for them. Fidelity is not something broadcasters should expect from viewers.

Broadcasters should therefore rework and try to overcome internal hurdles on prioritising content delivery. TV may not be the first screen; in fact, it could even be the last screen. It does not really matter. What matters more is to ensure that viewership is contained within the broadcaster’s own universe. Although revenue will still remain big on TV, it should not stop there.

Build your OTT base as fast as possible because one day, you will wake up to the fact that you need to combine the numbers to validate your total reach in order to justify market share and, ultimately, advertising dollars for free-to-air (FTA) TV broadcasters. With the rapid advent of online video streaming, this goes the same for pay-TV operators because the expectations are even higher to stall the rising trend of cord cutters ... and, the tsunami of cord nevers (people who have never signed up for pay-TV in the first place).http://www.apb-news.com/news/post-script/item/1924-over-the-top-an-afterthought?-june-2014.html