DTVE March/April 2019 issue

The OTT TV revolution continues, and its impact is being felt across all elements of TV, from content creation to the screen on which that content is viewed.

In this issue of Digital TV Europe, we look at three different topics that underscore the huge changes in TV production, distribution and consumption that are underway.

First, we look at the changing nature of the TV user experience. OTT services such as Netflix have helped transform the expectations of a mass of users about how TV services should look and feel and how best to search for and consume content. Now mainstream TV operators are increasingly under pressure from their users to provide universal search and discovery – tools that span not only the walled garden of the pay TV provider’s own services but a broad and ever-expanding range of third-party offerings too. We look at some of the technology challenges involved in providing universal discovery and some of the tools being made available that can help it along.

The growth in popularity of OTT streaming services reflects the wide availability of high-bandwidth broadband and the plummeting price of the technology required to get OTT video services up and running. Those developments have benefited not only legitimate rights-holders seeking to deliver services to consumers but those in the business of content theft too. Streaming piracy has exploded over the last couple of years, with many services having a highly professional sheen. Also in this issue of Digital TV Europe we look at the extent of the threat to revenue of legitimate providers and assess some of the strategies being adopted to combat that threat. Growth in popularity of streaming services and on-demand consumption has also prompted linear broadcasters to develop their own online portals and to find ways to fruitfully combine linear and non-linear in a single unified platform. Hence the adoption of standards-based ways to delivering services such as HbbTV, the rationale of which is to future-proof broadcast.

In this issue, we look at recent developments in hybrid delivery including the DVB-I initiative and HbbTV OpApp, a new effort to enable service providers to deliver ‘TV as an app’ services. Within the streaming world, the subscription video-on-demand model has emerged as the most popular and potentially lucrative way of monetising content to date. In addition to the established SVOD giants, numerous regional and niche operators have launched their own offerings, with varying degrees of success. Also in this issue, we interview the founder of Turkish OTT TV platform BluTV , who discusses his company’s model, expansion plans and original content strategy.

Elsewhere, we look forward to the ANGA COM trade show in Cologne in June and, as always, provide a digest of the latest industry news and technology developments.