INDUSTRY WATCH
CONTENT DELIVERY HAS
TO BE IMMEDIATE AND
RELIABLE REGARDLESS
OF WHERE THE END-USER
IS TUNING IN FROM AND
WHAT DEVICE.
T
he water-cooler effect has
evaporated. In fact, it’s been
cooling off for quite some time.
Long gone are the days when office
workers would gather in the mornings
to frantically discuss their reactions to
the previous night’s TV mega-moments.
There’s no more debate over who shot JR
– or who shot Mr Burns if that’s more your
cup of tea. No more gushing reactions to
Rachel getting off the plane or Deirdre
Barlow being released from prison.
Appointment-to-view television is quickly
becoming a thing of the past in an
OTT-universe. While some juggernauts
like Game of Thrones can still pull in
broadcast viewers week-to-week, other
mainstream successes like Stranger
Things have been produced and released
precisely to satisfy our desire for a binge.
As soon as we discover a new hit show
nowadays, somebody else in the office
has already discovered it, streamed it and
made it their next fancy-dress costume.
Our appetite for content has become
insatiable. With so much to watch and so
many places to watch it, second chances
for content owners are at a premium.
Content delivery has to be immediate
and reliable regardless of where the end-
user is tuning in from and what device
they choose, otherwise they might not
come back. Nobody wants to spend a
day with fingers in their ears avoiding the
spoiler-spilling Gary from accounts.
The flood of streamers
We’re now able to achieve cinema-
quality pictures on a pocket-sized device
and the growing pervasiveness of
connectivity means we can connect those
devices wherever we are (on the most
www.intelligentcio.com
part at least!). This changing pattern of
content consumption has dramatically
changed the media and entertainment
industry, with the result being an
overload in over-the-top platforms.
Digital players like Netflix, Amazon and
Facebook have changed the way we
perceive television. This has put pressure
on traditional broadcasters to adapt,
with many consequently launching their
own OTT platforms to keep pace. BBC
iPlayer, 4OD and Sky Go have become
common ways to access content, and
the recently announced BritBox hopes to
become the same.
Telecoms giants – notably BT – are also
exploring ways, most likely through
M&A, of joining the party and owning
the content their devices and networks
stream. Then there’s the content
owners themselves, who now realise the
opportunity of delivering content direct to
consumers and have invested in building
their own content delivery networks and
streaming platforms. We’ve already seen
this in sport, where the likes of the NFL,
MLB and the WWE all have their own OTT
networks, but Disney’s entrance into the
streaming market later this year might
be the biggest indication yet that the
landscape has shifted dramatically.
Taking ownership of the content delivery
network offers significant efficiencies and
reductions in operational expenditure. It
also allows content owners to establish
or strengthen a foothold in different
markets through direct relationships
with consumers. This is particularly true
for mobile-first or mobile-only countries
in Africa and Asia, where content
consumption is almost entirely through
portable devices.
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