As video-viewing habits continue to go over-the-top and extend to screens of all sizes, that shift is creating major challenges for the TV industry, particularly in areas such as measurement and monetization.
The challenges circling around measurement in the OTT realm are “significant,” Jane Clarke, CEO and managing director for the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), said.
“OTT is, in particular, the latest big disruptor to come along, and is obviously of major interest to some members as [both] a disruptor and an opportunity,” Clarke said, adding later that competition in the viewership measurement market is a good thing for the industry as TV continues to support new currencies and different currency combinations. But even as consumption on Netflix continues to rise and consumers gravitate to on-demand models, there’s still plenty of room for linear-focused services, even in the OTT space.
One company that’s taking that notion to task is Pluto TV, the company behind a free, ad-supported, linear-style OTT video service that delivers more than 100 virtual “channels.” Multiscreen video is a fragmented world, but Pluto TV is already delivering “millions and millions of video views,” Ilya Pozin, Pluto TV’s co-founder, and chief growth officer, said.
But OTT is not just about putting up a stream and calling it a day, said Matt Smith, chief evangelist at Anvato. In many cases, it involves integration of dynamic ad insertion platforms and closed-captioning support.
“It’s more than putting up a stream and checking that box,” he said in a discussion moderated by B&C contributing editor George Winslow. “Think about the revenue you can drive around that content.”
HBO has feet in both pools – the traditional TV pay TV world with HBO Go, its TV Everywhere platform, and HBO Now, its standalone OTT offering.
Tryneski said HBO has seen “great numbers” for HBO Now, and has found that HBO Go has also gotten a lift. “They’re not cannibalizing…they’re additive,” she said of the two offerings.
