ABI Research: 2020 will be “the year of DTC OTT Video”

2020 has been dubbed ‘the year of direct-to-consumer (DTC) OTT video’, with it being predicted that subscription numbers will reach 900 million worldwide. 

According to a new study from ABI Research, the growth of DTC OTT will continue to create a challenging market for vMVPDS. The report says that the arrival of even more DTC services – such as HBO Max and NBCU’s Peacock – will further fragment the landscape and lead to the potential decline of vMVPD subscriber numbers.

ABI video and cloud services principal analyst Michael Inouye said: “In 2020, more and more consumers will be moving away from the forced packaging of channels into fixed bundles. As the content landscape becomes more fragmented and consumers are presented with a growing list of options, the ability to pick and choose which ‘channels’ of content best fit their needs will only become increasingly more important.”

The report also predicts that 5G fixed wireless rollouts will accelerate. The capacity provided by 5G will lead operators to replace last-mile fiber connectivity for residential broadband services, it says.

However, one thing the research firm says will not grow in 2020 is 8K. Though it is the most prominent new technology at this year’s CES, ABI estimates that a combination of price, a lack of content and little consumer interest will hamper its growth.

Khin Sandi Lynn, video and cloud services analyst at ABI Research said: “Announcements of 8K TV sets by major vendors earlier in 2019 attracted much attention and raised many of questions within the industry.

“The fact is, 8K content is not available and the price of 8K TV sets are exorbitant. The transition from high definition to 4K will continue in 2020 with very limited 8K shipments – less than 1 million worldwide.”