OTT, Content and the space in between

OTT is not just the story of getting content to customers without a middle-man, but it’s also the story of getting content to customers with an understanding of what they most want to see. And what they most want to see is something that reflects their local culture and lifestyle.

With the launch of Netflix as the world’s first “Global TV station”, there has been talk about the lack of depth in many of the “station’s” libraries (https://www.finder.com/netflix-usa-vs-world-content). This is not a unique situation for Netflix, but for most OTT offerings, products and packages.

Any idea we have, as providers of entertainment, of a one-size-fits-all content model should should be stopped, at the outset.

The answer is not to fill that gap with more regional or international content, but with localised content, reflecting both an effort to present content in local languages, but more importantly to produce and create locally. The scales of economies for OTT enable us to provide true localisation with little more than an after-thought in licensing, production and content preparation.

How do we do that though? The OTT model, as it stands, produces a phenomenon unique for content distribution. It enables a provider to both know their customer as never before via analytics and data gathering, and then forces that provider to become more focused in their offerings because of that knowledge. This is the model of Netflix, Amazon and many other OTT providers in the western content space use to develop and licence their content. Follow, Analyse and Create. (https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-netflix-uses-analytics/) (http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/27/netflix-the-force-awakens/?ncid=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)

One needs look no further than what has happened with other services that focused on launching with a regionalised model, and who have followed the data to adapt to offering local content to make their product more attractive to individual markets vs. the larger regional play. For example, PCCW with the addition of MBC’s content library through their licensing deal with Turner for Hong Kong. (http://www.rapidtvnews.com/2015121140974/turner-pccw-combine-to-offer-mbc-content-in-hong-kong.html#axzz41Ssgcnvr)

Using that knowledge, we should be priming the pump early to offer localised libraries of content, not only regional content with subtitles or dubbed versions, but also truly local products where content from smaller producers and providers can make successful offerings. And in time will rival the existing PayTV model for revenue and reach.

If we don’t follow a model of localise early and localise often, in three years, we’ll be at a point where we’ve repeated the same mistakes from our “linear” past, and wondering how we blew our chance at the opportunity of lifetime. The opportunity of being able to connect with our customers and give them exactly what they want.