ottexec.com/magazine Summer 2018 Snapshots of OTT User Behavior How Evolving Consumer Trends Are Shaping the Industry It’s Not About You, It’s About Me Personalization in the OTT Age Finding Love Launching a New OTT Service People Will Like OTT Civil War Serving the Viewing Habits of Gen Xers vs. Millennials Don’t Feel Guilty You Can’t Possibly Binge Watch Every Show Break the Chains Blockchain Will Accelerate Pay-TV Industry Disruption Road Trip! Mobile TV Is Taking Over— But Ignore the Living Room at Your Peril Executive Q&A Bernarda Duarte Director of Content Acquisition, Roku Susanne Mei General Manager, PeopleTV Ralf Jacob Head of Digital Media Services, Oath Jon Cody Founder & CEO, TV4 Entertainment Are you delivering a personalized video experience? Viewers are demanding video content their way – what, when, where and how they want it. offers end to end video management solutions that provide the personalization pipeline you need. The Panorami Platform offers a turnkey, subscription-based service for building your multiscreen audience. The tide of viewer expectation is rising. Leverage SeaChange innovation to meet the challenge. To learn more visit www.seachange.com YEARS 25OF VIDEO EXCELLENCE or call us at +1.978.889.3302 Inside this Issue Case Studies 12 Finding Love in All the Right Places: New OTT App Won’t Be Lonely by Katia Loisel 31 Chill VoD App Helps with Cross-Platform Content Discovery by John Barron Executive Q&A 10 Roku’s Bernarda Duarte, Director of Content Acquisition 14 PeopleTV’s Susanne Mei, General Manager 34 TV4 Entertainment’s Jon Cody, Founder & CEO 38 Oath’s Ralf Jacob, Head of Digital Media Services Trends & Analysis 7 What I Want, When and Where I Want It: The State of the OTT User Experience by Stephen Johnson 20 Disrupting OTT Video: Snapshots of Blockchain Video Apps by Luke Carriere Executive Insights 4 Snapshots of User Behavior by Brian Mahony 5 It’s Not About Video…. It’s About Me! by Kurt Michel 17 So Many Shows, So Little Time by Bonnie Optekman 24 The Napster Effect: Does Content Have Value If You Don’t Protect It?by Hugh Dobbie 26 How Can Sports Brands Better Engage with the Elusive, Mobile Millennial Audience? by Kevin Cochrane Best Practices 18 Generational Diversity And Your Content Strategy by Julia Dimambro 25 You Already Know Mobile Is the First Screen. Now What? by Cathy Benigno and Erik Trusler 28 The Comprehensive Approach to Successfully Fight Piracy by Simon Trudelle 36 Fixing the Machine Mid-Flight by Michael Nagle OTT Executive Magazine Volume 7, Issue 5 - Summer 2018 Published by: Trender Research Inc., 24 Village View Road, Westford, MA 01886 [email protected] STAFF Copyright 2018 by Trender Research, Inc. BRIAN MAHONY NICHOLE JANOWSKY The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the expressed written consent of Trender Research, Inc. CEO, Trender Research Publications Manager Subscriptions: www.OTTexec.com/magazine • Yearly printed/mailed subscription in the U.S.: $39.95 Founder, OTT Executive Magazine OTT Executive Magazine Editor Editor-in-Chief Advertising: [email protected] ANDREA NELSON Disclaimer: Some submitters may be charged an editing fee to ensure articles are well-written and not overly promotional. Director of Operations Printed in the USA OTT Executive 3 Summer 2018 Magazine Executive Insights Snapshots of User Behavior By: Brian Mahony e’re really excited about this issue of OK, so we do have some very nice trend the magazine. We tend to dedicate a lot pieces on technology, but again it all ties Brian Mahony is the W CEO and Principal of space to technology, so an issue focused on back to consumer demand. Witbe’s Luke Analyst of Trender user behavior was well past due. That’s not to Carriere provides a must-read overview of Research. He is also say we shouldn’t be discussing technology, how blockchain will further disrupt the video President of the 45,000 member OTT Executive since you kind of need it to make everything entertainment industry based on his analysis Community— a vibrant work. Actually, to be fair, this issue really is of 14 of the leading blockchain apps. And and growing network about the intersection of consumer behavior we have two pieces, from Nagra’s Simon of TV and video pro- trends and the technology that enables them. Trudelle and Yare Media’s Hugh Dobbie, fessionals engaged through social media, But I digress. that highlight the challenges and strategies publications, and In this issue of the magazine, we bring for dealing with content piracy. At the end of events. Brian has 25 years experience with consum- you snapshots of the OTT industry as it the day, consumers just want to do the right er-oriented technology products and companies. stands right now, mostly from the perspective thing and we need to make it easy for them. of consumer behavior and major trends. Finally, we have several articles about the Oath’s Ralf Jacob. We kick things off with SeaChange’s rising prominence of mobile TV. Equifax’s We hope you appreciate this issue looking Kurt Michel who expounds on video Cathy Benigno and Erik Trusler talk about at the OTT industry from the “outside personalization. Kurt makes a nice parallel to the marriage of mobile devices and user data, in”; that is, starting from the consumer the old telephony world when we all shared while OTT Consulting’s Kevin Cochrane perspective and working back towards the the same home phone. Now, personalized summarizes lessons from the sports world for enabling technologies. We tried to pack it mobile devices are ubiquitous. What lessons engaging with mobile Millennials. Rounding with strategic insights that help you inspire can be applied to the video realm? things off is expert analysis of current user and motivate your teams. Enjoy the rest of Stephen Johnson, our resident UX expert trends by Vidillion’s Michael Nagle and the summer and happy reading! � from Coach Media, goes beyond the simple user interface and raises the stakes for other major components to be considered. He makes the case that only a new breed of “service- casters” may have the wherewithal to solve all the user experience problems. Then we pull in industry thought leaders for their input. In interviews with Roku’s Bernarda Duarte, PeopleTV’s Susanne Mei, and TV4’s Jon Cody we glean wonderful insights about launching, or extending, new OTT services to meet the evolving needs of viewers. We also publish two interesting case studies— Katia Loisel from Love Destination TV talks about her new OTT service for relationship advice; and Vennetics’ John Barron writes about the new Chill VoD app from Cellular One to help solve the problem of cross-platform content discovery. Even though most of the folks reading this magazine are industry insiders, we are still consumers who love TV and movies. We might not all be in the coveted Millennial demographic, but our viewing habits still matter. To that end, we have thoughtful articles from Bonnie Optekman and Julia Dimambro comparing their own TV consumption habits to the industry at large— in short, don’t feel guilty; you can’t watch everything that’s popular! 4 Executive Insights It’s Not About Video…. It’s About Me! By: Kurt Michel s an industry insider, I am continually camps who made compelling arguments on Kurt Michel, a recipient Aamazed at the innovation that the internet both sides. Coming from almost a decade of Trender Research’s has unleashed for the everyday viewer. At the in the Voice-over-IP (VoIP) space prior to OTT Genius award, turn of the century (yes, this one), I certainly shifting my focus to video, many of the “con” is VP of Marketing at video management did not think we would be watching video arguments sounded familiar, and most boiled solutions company over the Internet. Managed IPTV networks? down to this: “The Internet was not designed SeaChange Interna- Sure, that made sense. But the wild west of for that.” tional. He has over 30 years experience in tel- the unmanaged Internet seemed too great a Since I came from the VoIP space, I ecom, datacom, and challenge, given the stringent requirements should have known how this would go. The video, with roles in engineering, management, and of video delivery. internet brought new competition to the marketing. Within the video space, he has served as Akamai’s Global Product Marketing Director for the But then came a variety of new streaming telephone companies on the “wired” side of CDN provider’s media solutions, and as Sr. Market- protocols which made Internet video the network. New types of telephone devices ing Director at video service assurance company possible, from Flash to Adaptive Bitrate and services emerged – “IP Phones” that IneoQuest (now Telestream). (ABR) over HTTP, enabling the use of simply connected to business IP networks, Content Delivery Networks for high quality and services such as Vonage that allowed streaming. Companies like Microsoft, us to plug our traditional phones into an toll grade voice sound weak, so long as the Adobe, and Apple were all pushing in the internet-connected device. In the face of this, IP connection was good. The telephone direction of video delivered “over the top” the phone companies continued to tout the companies no longer even had the quality of an Internet connection, and the packaging benefits of “toll-grade voice” provided by the advantage. Today, I had a Skype call while competition between HLS, Smooth, and traditional phone connected to that copper driving my car, and the voice quality was HDS ensued, with MPEG-DASH pitched loop coming into your house - even as they better than many of the mobile “on-network” as the “everything” format.