At first glance, audiovisual technological advancesseem to diminish the value of the Multichannel Television (MVPD) industry. However, for Simon Trudelle, Nagra's Senior Marketing Director, pay television"remains the most innovative in the worlddespite being in a challenging transition period."
Competition is growing for subscription television. The OTT system (Over The Top platforms) is one of its most difficult opponents to win against; For this reason, many pay television channelsthat have decided to ally themselves with this type of video system. In the United States, which has the most expensive internet broadband in the world, it is simply more profitable to associate with these new TV services, which offer more and more features every day, in order to satisfy all the needs and demands of users.
Industries that offer to integrate the multichannel systems with streaming systems have considered managing the deployment of a more diverse range of video products, thus unlocking the full potential of advanced television advertising, transforming the customer experience from end to end. This would allow them to take advantage of customer data and invest intelligently in infrastructure and technology, as arranged by investors, as seen in a poll taken by the 2018 Pay TV InnovationForum in North America. The main idea is to grow and evolve through diversification, which means selling a range of products, from large channel packages to smaller content packages, as well as direct-to-the-consumer services.
In addition, Multichannel TV platforms are focusing more on expanding their advertising, establishing new alliances with cable networks, and thus selling a greater part of their ad inventory on various platforms.
By the end of the forum, thanks to MTMand Nagra, 85% of the attending investors agreed that in order to grow it is necessary to innovate, and 74% placed innovation as a strategic priority within five years. In addition, 64% admitted that they planned to offer independent OTT services, 67% TV Everywhereservices, 61% application-based television services and 78% new pricing models and content packages.
TV Everywhere is a discovery. It allows the user to watch television whenever he or she wants, but allowing them to see only the content for which they have paid. If customers didn’t pay, the schedule of available options wouldn’t be as high quality. In fact, taking a look at the most popular applications for TV on iPad, the most common ones have TV Everywhere authentication.
One of the key issues is that to in order to take advantage of TV Everywhere solutions, everything must be in the right place. This is because TV Everywhere is a verification system that allows content providers to ensure that the user has paid for the content. For example, if there was a television channel called TomTV that broadcasted for Android devices, it would be difficult to know whether the user had paid for the content on the website www.tom.tv(this information would not obtained by TomTV but by the cable provider). This is why authentication can be an issue, with TV Everywhere.
It is estimated that in 2018, some 22.2 million US customers cancelled their pay television services, but that in counterbalance, the number of new users could soon grow to at least 34.4 million, with the addition of people who have not yet enjoyed this service. The demands of each audience are different, since those who are older than 55 are usually more linked to conventional television, while millennials are more comfortable with online video services. This is just another great challenge that the MVPD executives must address.
Source: www.rapidtvnews.com, www.telesemana.com, www.dataxis.com, www.bbc.com, www.infotechnology.com, www.infosys.com, www.telecompetitor.com www.encompass.tv
