Posts
OTT Question Time Live 2023 — The State of the OTT Industry
Gulliver Smithers, former CTO Product & Technology at Sony Pictures, hosted an all-star panel at OTT Question Time Live on 31 January this year. Together with Kerensa Samanidis, Head of International, Channel 4, Rose Hulse, CEO, ScreenHits TV, Will Harrison, former MD BritBox UK and Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO, [...]
OTT Question Time Live 2023 — The Launch of ITVX
Deep Bagchee, Chief Product Officer at ITV talking to Matt Simpson, MD at Candyspace, at OTT Question Time Live on 31 January this year. [/pp-logged-users]
OTT Question Time Live 2023 — The Engagement Paradox
A presentation from Jonathan Kelly, Experience Director at Candyspace. To watch the video please login or register with VOD Professional. (This page should refresh once you've logged in!) ** **
OTT Question Time Live 2023 — The Missed Opportunity for UX-First Thinking in OTT
At OTT Question Time Live 2023 (London, 31 Jan 2023) With new technologies and distribution paradigms all the rage at the likes of IBC, NAB and of course OTTQT, Justin Fyles, MD of Skylark, asks, "When did we start putting user experience second?" To watch the video please [...]
Webinar – The Streaming 100 Report
To misquote Shakespeare, all the world’s a stream especially when it comes to our evolving media consumption habits. OTT video, music, gaming, social, sports, editorial as well as arts and culture streaming services, all vie for our attention. But which ones are the most popular, have the best [...]
The Streaming 100 Report
Digital product experts Candyspace today launch The Streaming 100 — a report detailing the top 100 streaming platforms across multiple verticals in the UK - in partnership with VOD Professional. The paper evaluates over 200 digital products that each have a significant streaming element to their product from [...]
In OTT Discovery is now King
With subscriber growth stalling, streaming businesses need to invest more in the experience of discovering content, writes Candyspace’s Creative Partner, Martin Brierley “Dark clouds are gathering for the streaming industry” warned Fortune magazine back in April. And with news in October that 1m British households have opted [...]
OTT Question Time #67 – The Most Popular OTT Devices
Take a look back at the history of the most popular devices for watching online video and a fascinating picture emerges. In 2011, for example, 67% of the BBC iPlayer’s 1.9 billion TV requests were made from computers (PCs, laptops and Macs). That’s no huge surprise – smartphones [...]
Catch me if you can: How to ensure your VOD team moves with your subscribers
Candyspace Partner, Martin Brierley, explains how media companies can fast track their product development roadmap in the middle of a global talent crisis During the COVID pandemic, Video-on-Demand (VOD) platforms benefited from substantial growth. For instance, Netflix saw an uplift of 28 million new subscribers in the [...]
OTT Question Time #66 – Analysing OTT ARPU
In our recent OTT Question Time about Disney vs. Netflix, Alan Wolk of TVREV told us that although technically Disney had more subscribers than Netflix (222.1m vs. 220.7m) that might not be the best metric for comparing the two companies. Why? Because over a quarter of Disney’s customers [...]
OTT Question Time #65 – Innovations in OTT Pay Models
At this week’s OTT Question Time (Thursday 29th September 2022) we talked about established OTT pay models - PVOD, TVOD, SVOD, SVOD-lite, AVOD, BVOD and FAST - and explored the spaces in between. Could we see new tiers, for example, just for habitual binge-watchers? Or for digital-premieres? [...]
OTT Question Time #64 – IBC 2022 Review
After an absence of three years, IBC – the International Broadcasting Convention – was back last week. This was a chance for the industry to come together, share knowledge, exhibit technologies and solutions, and meet people for the first time who they might previously only have seen [...]
OTT Question Time #63 – Disney Overtakes Netflix?
Breathy headlines last week as Disney – now with 221m streaming subscribers – was reported to have edged past Netflix as the world's biggest SVOD. And they did it in less than three years! And Disney is still growing fast! Netflix dethroned! But is that an accurate [...]
OTT Pay Model Innovations
Until now, at least here in the UK, OTT pay models have remained relatively simple. We have PVOD, TVOD, SVOD, AVOD and paid-by-licence-fee. Am I missing any? None of the biggest players have experimented with AVOD-lite like Hulu. Companies like Channel 4 and ITV have, instead, encouraged viewers [...]
OTT Question Time #62 – The Economics of FAST
It’s easy to think of FAST as simply a nice-to-have mezzanine floor between legacy scheduled programming and true on-demand viewing. After all, aren’t FAST channels – which are pre-programmed “linear” streams delivered OTT – mainly used by cord cutters who want to retain the experience of having [...]
OTT Question Time #61 – Subscribe – Churn – Resubscribe
A recent consumer survey by Omdia (free with registration) found that in the USA, the percentage of users that permanently cancelled at least one online video subscription within the previous 12 months has nearly doubled over the past three years, from 18% in November 2018 to 34% [...]
OTT Question Time #60 – Paramount+ SWOT Analysis
With Paramount+ now live in the UK, and already boasting 40m subscribers at the end of Q1 2022, we did a SWOT analysis of the new service on this week’s OTT Question Time (Thursday 7th July, 4pm UK / 8am PST). Together with Allan McLennan, CEP/Media, Head [...]
OTT Question Time #59 – EPGs in an OTT World
In the days of linear-only TV, the EPG (electronic programming guide) was the easiest way to find out what you might like to watch. Presented as a simple grid, or even just a list, it would tell you what’s on now, next and, if it was very sophisticated, [...]
OTT Question Time #58 – Disney+ & Netflix Going AVOD
On the one hand, last week’s news that Disney was planning to launch an ad-supported tier for Disney+ came as a bit of a surprise. After all, the SVOD, which has only been live since 2019, is still growing strongly and is forecast to overtake Netflix – [...]
50 VOD Professionals 2022 – Nominations Now Open!
50 VOD Professionals – our list of the 50 most influential people working in the UK’s video-on-demand and OTT industry – is back for 2022! Nominations are now open and we’d like to hear from you about the brilliant people that power VOD services all over the UK: [...]