Cord-cutting is slowly gaining the well-deserved status of a revolution. According to Experian Marketing Services, "approximately 7.6 million U.S. homes in 2014 (up from 5.1 million homes in 2010) - or a total of 100 million cable subscribers - left the cable bundles behind". It’s difficult to disagree with Mashable when they sum up this exodus by noting that the cord cutters “just had their best week ever”.
Gartner’s research predicts that spending on SVOD services is about to grow 28.1% in 2014 in North America and 18.2% in 2015 in Western Europe. Nevertheless, since this flip to cord-cutting won’t happen overnight, SVOD will continue to play a significant role in complementing cable TV and satellite TV.
To bring the cord-cutters onboard, many of the most influential broadcasting companies, such as ESPN, HBO and CBS in the U.S. and Univision, BBC and RTL in Europe are now opting for either of two tactics:
- the extension of the cable plans by offering bundles on top of their cable memberships
- and stand-alone, internet-only subscription.
This rapid change of dynamics, made possible by 4G deployment, promises more freedom to the premium video content producers and copyright owners. It also offers far more interesting choices for the consumers who will now be able to utilize the OTT content on-the-go at increasingly affordable prices.
What role does Cleeng play in this emerging OTT landscape?
This sudden cord-cutting hype isn’t surprising for us. For the past 3 years, we’ve been continuously proving the potential of SVOD services for monetizing content for sport organizations, entertainment brands and indie moviemakers while we have been waiting for the broadcasting industry to wake up and smell the coffee.
We now clearly realize that the direction in which we headed in 2011 was the right direction. Together with our OVP partners - Livestream, Kaltura, Brightcove and Ustream – all of whom are the leaders in the cloud-based streaming services –, we’ve been able to master on a global level the SVOD formulas that are available on-the-go.
Our summary of the 5 reasons why SVOD has come of age:
1. SVOD offers a fresh, new opportunity for extra revenues. Interest in PayTV is dropping, and OTT can help to compensate for this downward trend.
2. Consumers are increasingly on-the-go. With a growing number of global citizens who are traveling and accessing content on their mobile devices, reaching new audiences has become critical for the broadcasters, both in terms of their expansion into new territories and the recruitment of new age groups within their customer base.
3. Content overload is a painful fact. With hundreds of channels offered to each customer in one cable TV package, there’s a strong need for curation and tailoring the content to the consumer’s actual interests. This is especially true for the younger audiences who are digital savvy and not particularly interested in the pay TVs.
4. 4G is here to facilitate content on-the-go. Nowadays, anyone can watch anything online - on any device - with virtually no interruptions of their Internet connection. Launching your own TV channel on the internet has never been easier.
5. The deployment time and cost are far lower than in the past. Thanks both to a wide choice of Open Video Platforms that can manage streamlined video formats, as well as to companies such as Cleeng who will thoroughly manage the monetization and access processes, virtually anyone can now operate their own online TV channel.
The bottom line is this: The idea is simple, and you can now implement it much faster than with anyone else!
Cleeng + OVP = SVOD
Contact us today to start your own subscription TV channel online!
