The television industry has seen a huge shakeout due to the newly arrived technology in the arena of the media and entertainment sector. Traditional operators and broadcasters are majorly facing the pressure of newly emergent modern OTT platforms. All these are leading to strategic challenges to monetize the subscriber networks of the platform. The key challenges that traditional entertainment operators are facing are listed below:
- Operators are experiencing disruption due to their traditional approach to entertainment and neglect of modern interactive features (Catch Up TV, On-Demand Services, Time Shift) that lead to major subscribers churn.
- Due to the inefficient legacy solutions, the traditional broadcasters lacking behind in the field of user-behavior data about the type of content they any subscribers consume.
- Traditional operators are not fully-equipped with modern technology and are unable to make a balance between their approach and the modern approach.
All these challenges that the traditional operators are facing can be effectively addressed by the OTT technology. OTT platforms are effortlessly run by over-the-top technology and enable a new concept of TV for both users and operators.
There are many predictions and researches that present an incredible growth of modern OTT platforms and live video streaming services for the past few years. All this has been given great support in the Covid times. The regular restrictions, lockdowns, and stuck-at-home scenarios for an unknown time made a hike in the OTT platform users. Consumers rapidly moved towards the OTT platforms and various other forms of Connected TV (CTV) content to get entertained in the lockdown period. This has brought a tremendous scope of developments for the operators to restructure their traditional business model.
What Are OTT Platforms And How The OTT Technology Work?
Over-the-top platforms use the internet to broadcast video content directly to consumers. It bypasses the traditional streaming technology of cable connections and satellite broadcasters. It brings an alternative option to the traditional broadcasting world.
OTT technology is most commonly associated with Video On Demand Or VOD platforms but it also encompasses audio streaming, VoIP (internet-based voice calling solutions), and messaging services.
Streaming of video content via OTT platforms is a little complex to be understood by the customers. There is a lot of technology that works behind bringing that content over your mobile, tablet, laptop, or smart TV screen. Let us just understand it all in a short, crisp, and easy manner. The OTT technology starts working with the uploading of the content and here is how it flows to stream the content to the users:
- Firstly the video content is uploaded on the OTT platforms by the concerned provider
- The video content is then transmitted through the CDN or Content Delivery Network
- The users or the customers chose the content of their choice over the device of their choice i.e. Smartphones, Tablets, PCs, Laptops, Smart TVs, etc.
- Video players took over the content chosen from the CDN node and stream it to the users directly.
This is the shortest way to understand the process of delivering video content over the internet. We will surely put a more detailed part to let you understand the proper technology working behind the OTT platforms.