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2015 a blockbuster year for OTT
Editor
| 04 December 2015
That over-the-top services (OTT) now permeate the mainstream is beyond doubt, but OTT really hit the gas over the last 12 months says research by Parks Associates.
The OTT Playbook, Part II: Keys to Building Momentum study — co-sponsored by Vindicia and Ooyala — found that the global OTT marketplace comprises more than 65 players either offering video services or about to do so in the coming months.
In addition to active OTT video services from the likes of Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO and Amazon Prime, Parks identified a number of leading players across major markets stating their intentions to introduce OTT services such as SingTel, Sony, Warner Bros, Overstock.com and Samsung.
These providers have to date generated approximately 1.6 billion subscribers worldwide actively watching online video on a variety of connected devices. This represents just over a fifth of the planet’s population. Parks calculates that 900 million access TV programming and films online currently and expects this number to pass 1.3 billion by 2019.
The report found that viewers’ first priority was content, with more than 70% of consumers subscribing to services like Netflix and Hulu Plus due to specific titles available through the service, and over one-third of consumers do so in order to access original content. The size of the video library and the amount of recent content were also cited as important factors.
Another key facet was service availability. Consumers expected OTT services to be available on multiple platforms. Almost half of consumers who watch video on connected devices want to be able to use four or more different connected platforms to access OTT video content, according to the report. Even though in-home viewing of content with a mobile device was common, most consumers said that they wanted to watch on the largest screen available. Not surprisingly, the study reinforced the traditional view that television-based viewing was preferred to viewing on a computer, which is itself more popular than tablet-based viewing.
Yet even though it painted a rosy picture for OTT in general, the OTT Playbook, Part II: Keys to Building Momentum report warned that quality OTT video services could struggle if they didn’t provide consumers with unique features, benefits, and value such as original content, promotional programs and community building. In addition, while ongoing promotion and discovery of content within the user experience continued to be important as a means of driving engagement and stickiness, Parks noted that this was made on the assumption that viewers must first be able and motivated to find and use the service itself. Availability was also an important consideration, with consumers expecting OTT services to be available on multiple connected platforms.
“OTT services face a race for content and a race to reach consumers on all of their connected devices,” said Vindicia SVP marketing, Bryta Schulz. “However, with so many players entering the market, interesting content and widespread availability alone are not enough to guarantee survival. Players must be able to look beyond their own services and establish strategies to achieve success in the context of heightened competition.”
