Video: Meeting the Multi-Platform, Multi-Device Challenge

OTT’s changed over the last decade going from a technical marvel to a massive market in its own right with significant reach and technical complexity. There are now many ways to ‘goto market’ and get your content in front of your viewers. Managing the strategy, the preparation & delivery of content, as well as the player ecosystem, is a big challenge under discussion by this Streaming Media panel of experts: Ian Nock from Fairmile West, Remi Beaudouin from Ateme, Pluto TV’s Tom Schultz and Jeff Allen from ShortsTV.

Introduced by moderator Ben Schwarz Jeff launches straight into a much-needed list of definitions. Video on demand, VOD, is well-understood subgenres are simultaneously similar and important to differentiate. AVOD means advertising-funded, SVOD is subscription-funded and TVOD, not mentioned in the video, is transactional VOD which is otherwise called Pay TV. As Jeff shows next, if you have an SVOD channel on someone else’s platform such as Amazon Prime your strategy may be different, so calling this out separately is useful. A new model has appeared called FAST which stands for ‘Free Ad-Supported TV’ which is a linear service that is streamed with dynamic ad insertion. To be clear, this is not the same as AVOD since AVOD implies choosing each and every show you want to watch. FAST simulates the feel of a traditional linear TV channel. Lastly, Jeff calls out the usefulness and uniqueness of the social platforms which are rarely a major source of income for larger companies but can form an important part in curating a following and leading viewers to your your services.

 

 

Jeff finishes up by explaining some of the differences in strategy for launching in these different ways. For instance, for a traditional linear channel, you would want to make sure you have a large amount of new material but for an ad-supported channel on another platform, you may be much more likely to hold back content. For FAST channels, typically these are more experimentally and niche-branded. Jeff looks at real examples from the History Channel, MTV and AMC before walking through the thinking for his own fictional service.

Next up is Ian Nock who is Chair of the Ultra HD Forum’s interoperability working group looking at how to launch a service with next-generation features such as HDR, UHD or high frame rates. He outlines the importance of identifying your customers because by doing that, you can understand the likely device population in your market, their average network performance and the prevalence of software versions. These are all big factors in understanding how you might be able to deliver your content and the technologies you can choose from to do so. For UHD, codec choice is an important part of delivery as well as the display format such as HDR10, HDR10+ etc. Ian also talks about needing a ‘content factory’ to seamlessly transcode assets into and out of next-generation formats remembering that for each UHD/HDR viewer, you’re still likely to have 10 who need SDR. Ian finishes off by discussing the delivery of higher frame rates and the importance of next generation audio.

Wrapping up the video is Ateme’s Remi raising discussion points on the continuing need for balance between active and passive TV, the lack of customisation of TV services, increasing sensitivities on the part of both the customer and streaming providers around sharing analytics and the need to find a way to make streaming more environmentally friendly. Lastly, Tom talks about how PlutoTV is a a service which is very much based on data and though privacy is upheld as very important, decisions are very quantitative. He’s seen that, over the past year, usage patterns have changed for instance the move from mobiles to second screens (i.e. tablets). Delivering DRM to many different platforms is a challenge but he’s focused on ensuring there is zero friction for customers since it’s an AVOD service, it’s vitally important to use the analytics to identify problems, to ensure channel changes are fast and to have end-to-end playback traceability.

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Speakers

Tom Schultz Tom Schultz
Director of Engineering – Native Apps
Pluto TV
Ian Nock. Ian Nock
Founder & Principal Consultant,
Fairmile West
Jeff Allen Jeff Allen
President,
ShortsTV
Remi Beaudouin Remi Beaudouin
Chief strategy Officer
ATEME
Ben Schwarz Moderator:Ben Schwarz
CTO,
innovation Consulting

Video: Ad-Supported Streaming Takes Over?


FAST, SVOD and AVOD are all different ways to bring programming to viewers with different costs to the viewer. All delivered over the internet, FAST is a service that unites live, linear TV with a VOD service whereas AVOD only has video on demand. Both FAST and AVOD are free to watch thanks to adverts whereas SVOD is usually advert-free as this is subscriber VOD where you pay monthly. This video from Streaming Media discusses the rise of FAST and its importance in the market.

‘Is niche content key?’ askes moderator Chris Pfaff to Damian Pelliccione from Revry. Damian distances his service from niche as it serves the over 5% of the US population who identify as LGBTQ+ or similar, Despite not being niche, in common with niche channels, Revry’s content is not typically provided by the mainstream and has a very deep meaning to those watching. because they are working with an underserved demographic, they feel FAST is much more appropriate than SVOD as equal access is important. However, Damian is at pains to point out that, in reality, the service is a ‘tribrid’ of FAST, AVOD and SVOD. Revry’s marketing has moved to buying hero units to position itself on smart TVs and STBs in pole position and also aligning its brand outside of the streaming market such as associating with pride festivals. One advantage of FAST is the cost of user is far lower than SVOD which can be in the realms of $9 per user.

 

 

One of the motivators for Sony to start its BRAVIA brand of smart TVs was, Nick Colsey explains, to enable people to access niche streaming services to supplement the mainstream linear channels. This was done through a menu of apps, much like mobile computing, each one a window into a different walled garden. Now, Sony integrates streaming services into the same EPG as linear which shows that convergence continues unabated, in common with ATSC 3.0’s indifference to delivery method. Nick views Sony as a ‘Switzerland’ of content aggregation as it has no conflict of interest given it doesn’t run a rival service.

Chris Yates from Redbox says that FAST channels work well for them as they site well alongside customers’ other SVOD bundles remaining highly accessible. Finding customers, Chris states is harder than it used to be and now the gatekeepers are increasingly equipment manufacturers. Getting yourself on Sony TVs or Samsung equipment is a major vector for exposure but is not always practical. Chris says that rather than competing with youtube, it’s more general than that, he sees Redbox competing for leisure time. Asked later in the session, Chris says he sees consolidation on the horizon for both studios and streaming services.

Amagi’s Srinivasan KA is pleased to claim that they deliver up to 45% of all content on FAST platforms. He sees FAST as growing because it’s more demographic than cable without the need to get 100 services when only 2 would do. And those 2 channels can go much deeper into a topic than mainstream channels would. Not only can you go into a topic deeper, but with more choice of topics, you can go deeper into discovering, understanding and following up your own interests.

Philippe Guelton from Crackle explains their efforts to create programmes differently whether live drama or close-to live. He feels innovation is important and is one way to deal with companies who are spending ‘too much money on streaming, implying they are loss-leaders and therefore ripe for acquisition.

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Speakers

Srinivasan KA Srinivasan KA
Co-founder,
Amagi
Chris Yates Chris Yates
General Manager – On-Demand
Redbox
Damian Pelliccione Damian Pelliccione
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer,
Revry
Nick Colsey Nick Colsey
Vice President, Business Development
Sony Electronics Inc.
Philippe Guelton Philippe Guelton
EVP, Online Networks, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment
President, Crackle Plus
Moderator: Chris Pfaff
CEO,
Chris Pfaff Tech Media