How to keep up when OTT content is the norm

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This post was written by Jim O'Neill, principal analyst and Videomind editor at Ooyala.

We’re living in a transitional time in the video industry, where traditional pay-TV companies, broadcasters, and content owners are rapidly evolving into a new class of hybrid media companies in response to changing technologies and consumer demands. Those companies have new challenges around delivery, measurement, business model, and how to make it as simple as TV used to be. Online video no longer is a tactic to include in a larger go-to-market strategy: it’s becoming the core business a strategic plan is built upon.

Everyone watches streaming video and, increasingly, everyone streams.

Take the Rio Olympics, for example. Primetime consumption in the United States was down from the 2012 London Olympics, despite events taking place in Rio in a time zone seemingly designed to leverage the massive US audience (it’s just an hour ahead of East Coast time in the US).

Streaming numbers, however, are up significantly, with NBCUniversal putting 4,500 hours of live Olympic content online. The first Saturday of competition from Rio saw 155 million live streaming minutes, the most ever for NBC’s Olympics digital platform, and up 263% from London in 2012. On the first Monday of competition, more than 13.4 million uniques watched, 45% more than NBC recorded four years ago.

“Everything is available on streaming — all caps, underline, italics,” Jim Bell, executive producer of NBC’s Olympics coverage told USA Today. “Every competition can be watched by every person in America in real time as it happens.”

It’s not just the Olympics.

In August, Atlanta-based operator Cox Communications expanded its pay-TV content lineup significantly, looking to attract more Hispanic viewers. But it also announced the launch of a new SVOD service for the same audience. The $9.99 streaming service gives Cox a better chance at reaching younger viewers and is available outside its traditional cable footprint.

Disney, meanwhile, in August announced it would pay $1 billion for a piece of a technology company that would allow it to more easily take an iteration of ESPN over the top.

“This is a whole new world where distributors are going into the content space and content owners are going into the distribution space,” CEO Bob Iger said. “We are looking at a marketplace that is so dynamic.”

Dynamic and complex. Delivery, monetization, measurement, and workflow demand a nimble and flexible approach, one that can change as demands do.

At Ooyala, we’ve been at the forefront of change in the industry for nearly a decade. We’ve enabled some of the world’s biggest operators, broadcasters, and content companies to take new, personalized video experiences online.

Only Ooyala offers the most comprehensive suite of video software and services, a complete data-driven workflow that can be used as content is concepted and developed, enables delivery to the broadest audience at the highest quality, helps you monetize it with a robust ad-tech solution and provides best-of-breed analytics to enable you to continually optimize the experience and make informed decisions to drive your business forward.

For more insights, download Ooyala’s Q2 2016 Global Video Index report.

This post is sponsored by Ooyala. | Content written and provided by Ooyala.