At this week’s OTT Question Time, Thursday 17 February, 4pm UK, we talked about the broadcasters, films studios and operators all over the world that have decided to launch their own stand-alone OTT services and go direct-to-consumer. These companies may already have dipped their toes in the water by making their titles available on B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) platforms like Amazon Prime Channels but how do they get ready to provide a more expanded offering?
Together with Tom Williams, CEO of Ostmodern, Joe Foster, CEO and co-founder of Easel TV, Debbie Leishman, co-founder of The Subscription Agency, and Ashley Horne, Technical Director at Simplestream, we explored:
- The various flavours of D2C
- The systems and technologies needed to power D2C solutions
- Having first-hand relationships with customers (as opposed to distributors, cinemas and OTT platforms)
- D2C and the role of aggregators
- And how the future of D2C services – especially from broadcasters – might play out
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ABOUT KAUSER KANJI
Kauser Kanji has been working in online video for 19 years, formerly at Virgin Media, ITN and NBC Universal, and founded VOD Professional in 2011. He has since completed major OTT projects for, amongst others, A+E Networks, the BBC, BBC Studios, Channel 4, DR (Denmark), Liberty Global, Netflix, Sony Pictures, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation and UKTV. He now writes industry analyses, hosts an online debate show, OTT Question Time, as well as its in-person sister event, OTT Question Time Live.