Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) BroadcastAsia2016 Show Daily - Day 1 | Page 16
16 BROADCASTASIA2016 SHOWDAILY
16
31 May 2016
Seizing the opportunities of OTT
BY JOE KHODEIR
Broadcasters are no longer simply broadcasters. No longer can they deliver one
or a handful of channels, with a format
decision as simple as SD or HD. Today, the
expectation is that content will be available
to computers and mobiles, across a range
of delivery systems. That content will be
streamed live, and it will be packaged and
offered as video-on-demand (VoD), as a free
catch-up service or maybe as a paid-for or
subscription archive.
All that is a given. Today, the key challenges facing broadcasters are, first, how to
deliver all this content at scale; and, second,
how to pay for it.
Looking at the delivery challenge first, it
is clear that scale is the real issue. According
to Parks Associates, an estimated 1.6 billion
people worldwide watch online video, with
probably a billion of those watching on mobile devices. Video traffic to mobiles is set
to grow at 55% a year until 2020, according
to McKinsey.
All these receiving devices have different
requirements. There are four different versions of the Android operating system with
more than 10% market penetration at the
moment. While there is a long-term aspiration for delivery to move to MPEG-DASH, at
the moment HLS is still widely used, which
means that Smooth Streaming also has to be
supported for those devices, which do not
want to use an Apple proprietary standard.
Inside the streaming format, there are different codecs, bitrates, screen resolutions
and encryption systems.
Clearly, the idea that there can be dedicated broadcast hardware to create all of
these outputs is crazy. The only way that this
can be achieved is through software devices,
and preferably virtualised or cloud devices,
which can be spooled up and down as necessary. That provides the capacity, even in
peaks, along with resilience through rapid
replacement of failed processes.
A unified software delivery platform also
offers a solution to the second challenge:
how to pay for the service. Advertising
remains the best source of revenue, but
that advertising has to be tailored to the
platform and the consumer — ideally down
to the individual. The anytime, anywhere
nature of today’s video consumption experience makes this a difficult proposition.
For the most part, the television advertising
2016 is shaping up to be the
year where the media world
finally gets a grasp on the
monetisation of content, no
matter where or when it is
consu med.
Respondents to an Imagine Communications survey cited the migration from a linear to an omniplatform ad management approach as being a top competitive priority within their organisation.
world has been unable to keep up with the
migration of eyeballs to alternative viewing
platforms and non-linear content distribution models.
The good news is that 2016 is shaping
up to be the year when the media world
finally gets a grasp on the monetisation
of content, no matter where or when it is
consumed.
The omni-platform environment, which
encompasses linear television, on-demand,
DVR, multi-screen, radio and digital, demands that media companies look towards
integrated solutions that place and monetise ads across multiple video consumption
environments.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents to
Imagine Communications’ Focus Forward
2016 survey cited the migration from a
linear to an omni-platform ad management
approach as being a top competitive priority
within their organisation.
An omni-platform approach was also
seen as key to maximising the efficiency
and reducing the errors linked to ad management and as a way to enable media
companies to maximise the value of their inventory, therefore generating new revenue.
Stepping away from a linear model is also
expected to help broadcasters provide more
value to advertisers and
agencies. ❑
Joe Khodeir is senior
vice-president AsiaPacific, Imagine Communications (booth
5B3-03).
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