How mobile video is changing the definition of TV
YouTube, video on demand and new media: opportunities at hand
Consider the last time you walked on a busy street, or used public transport. You might have been too distracted — perhaps checking your phone — to notice people around you watching video on a mobile device.
We’ve written on this blog before about how younger generations are engaging with new technologies and how, specifically, they’re consuming entertainment.
These new behaviours aren’t limited to the young, but influence and alter how older people consume content, too. The biggest drivers of this have been smartphones, whose screens are now bigger than when the mobile revolution started a decade ago, and have evolved to allow easy internet access and different types of media to be played on them. This software improvement, together with better data packages, have resulted in a dramatic rise in video viewing on smartphones.
Experts believe that by 2020, mobile video will account for 75% of all mobile data traffic. Consumer demand for mobile is higher than ever, which is a great opportunity for digital publishers, broadcasters, and video on demand services to invest in mobile-friendly products.
The YouTube effect
A crucial starting point when observing user behaviours in mobile video is the video-sharing platform YouTube. In the age group of people under 30, YouTube is the most popular social app on any device, according to Statista. Among people over 30, it is only surpassed by Facebook. The platform itself states more than 70% of its watch time comes from mobile devices. In the United States, more than half of mobile users claim to watch videos on YouTube daily.
Average mobile viewing sessions have been increasing each year, and YouTube plays a big role in driving more users to adopt mobile devices as primary video viewing tools.
Video is, as we’ve written here before, the preferred media for user engagement. Whether the industry you operate in is advertising, science or technology, plenty of studies have confirmed video produces a higher number of online responses and general feedback than other media. In today’s online space, crowded with several news feeds on multiple apps, video is quick to stand out and capture user attention.
YouTube’s content personalisation, heavily based on user history, as well as its well-known ‘rabbit hole effect’ which can keep users hooked on the website for hours, have been credited as a great influence on Netflix as a SVoD service. After considering an offer in 2005 that involved a hard drive that would enable people to download videos, YouTube’s early success led Netflix into creating a product based on convenience and speed instead: a streaming platform.
Another major player in YouTube’s success was its push for user-generated content from the beginning, and its investment in content creators. Before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, Web 2.0 was all about YouTube, as users progressed from a passive role as content consumers, to an active role as producers.
Social media networks, also drawing from YouTube, were quick to learn the importance of video as part of a better, more engaging user experience. Terms such as ‘stories’ and live videos have gained traction this decade in the world of user-generated content, garnering attention from big brands and digital influencers.
Video has become such a vital part of social media that a study found that 47% of younger millennials would watch their favourite programmes on social media if they were available — and older respondents were also interested.
What mobile represents
The advent of the smartphone, which made social media networks rise in popularity quickly, is the biggest reason why video today is no longer confined to a TV or computer screen.
Mobile creates choice by making sure people can watch what they want from a device that fits in their pocket. Smartphones’ larger screen sizes mean the only competition they have now are smart TVs, after reports show PCs and tablets are lagging behind.
When at home, people have shown a preference for the TV itself — including rising numbers of YouTube viewership in this device — but the smartphone has become an essential companion tool for everyday use. Even if they’re not watching video on their mobile, 45% of people in the US are regularly checking it as a second screen while watching TV.
The smartphone is used to augment the TV viewing experience when conversing with people who are watching the same programme, or by searching for more information about what’s being watched. It can also be used as a second screen to watch a different programme.
Younger generations are growing accustomed to the freedom that comes with mobile viewing. TV viewing, as a concept linked to the old ‘magic box’, is completely outdated and has been replaced by a concept which requires only an internet connection to access more content than has ever existed.
TV is now more similar to radio: we can carry it with us everywhere and still enjoy it while we do other things. This has been made possible because of companies taking advantage of new technology and a strong medium.
Mobile impact on the streaming industry
Streaming platforms (such as Netflix) aren’t the only ones responsible for pushing video products on mobile. There is a plethora of apps dedicated to the sport world. A lot of them are used for their notification features, which guarantee fans are constantly caught-up in sports news throughout the day, with plenty of video content to watch. During matches, these apps update fans on relevant statistics and, allowing for social media integration, make it possible to share memorable videos and highlights.
Although it’s fair to say highlights don’t replace the value of a full game to a sport fanatic, they are allowing more casual fans (or fans that don’t follow a team or an athlete as closely) to make educated decisions about whether it’s worth watching the entire event. During a live game of their favourite team, people can receive a notification on their phone about an important moment happening at the same time at a different game, which takes them directly to a video — seconds after it happens in real time.
A growing number of sports leagues and broadcasters is now encouraging mobile streaming of live games at affordable rates. The Sky Sports pass on NOW TV offers a Mobile Month Plan for £5.99 a month. Both the NBA and NFL have official league passes where full games or game quarters are available. There are obvious benefits for rights holders to pursue opportunities in mobile, considering the now increasing detachment from pay TV.
On a different streaming branch, the video game and esports universe have long explored and profited from mobile video. On Twitch, a famous video game streaming platform now owned by Amazon, the number of monthly active users streaming on mobile increased 266% in 2018.
Besides the rising number of dedicated mobile gaming apps, popular console and PC video games are releasing mobile versions, and technologies such as AR are taking the industry by storm. The more the video game industry evolves and turns to mobile, the more users move to platforms such as Twitch, Mixer and YouTube to learn or share their knowledge — very often live, and daily. These streaming sessions, which can quite easily earn players hundreds of followers, are even more easily watched on a mobile device.
For video game fans, the experience can feel similar to watching a TV series, as they go through ‘episodes’ of streamers playing a game from beginning to end, dividing it by video chapters.
It’s awfully close to the new normal of picking up a smartphone and playing a brand new popular film on a video on demand service. Only an app away.
Technical challenges to mobile video
As a digital product design agency, it’s essential that we take note of the challenges we face and share our experience with mobile video, so that we can be better advisors and help our partners reach the outcomes they look for.
We can highlight two distinct challenges which are familiar to anyone building a VoD product for these devices. The first is the difficulty in delivering highly adaptive streams for mobile networks.
The race for mobile devices to deliver more and more features and ways of solving the video playback challenge means that people need to choose streaming video solutions that can adapt rapidly to new devices. Technology providers such as Mux (a partner of ours) have solved this by using intelligence to adapt formats according to the device requesting content, but it remains a continual arms race with the devices.
Features such as download, caching and pre-loading of content need to be carefully weighed up against user bandwidth concerns, so there is no one single path to the perfect mobile video experience.
Integrating a social experience is also hard due to the lack of space a mobile screen has compared to a computer or a TV. Besides, as smartphones are used for a multitude of tasks, it can be hard to stay focused on watching something without pausing to answer a text message, to check a notification, an email, etc.
The future of mobile video
With the decoupling of video and TV — and the proliferation of smartphones and social media networks that are heavy on video content — millennial internet users are more likely to watch TV series on streaming platforms than a live programme on cable TV. Older generations may be slower to follow these trends, but they appreciate the range of mobile devices and variety of content online.
The connected viewer will shape future video experiences, which is why every content provider going OTT should be thinking about platforms, not products. In such a fluctuating market, the product presented to users in a year could suffer great changes because of how apps, devices and distribution channels regularly transform themselves.
For that reason, the best investment is to build headless platforms, which are more adaptable to different types of media, with API systems that support continuous growth and changes in the product — independently of what it is.
Changes in user behaviour should be expected and understood, which is why we stress the importance of an editorial team to look at the broad scope of decision-making and usability. Many software companies building products are using machine learning to make decisions, with algorithms designed specifically for a product, when it’s futile to assume that it will stay the same.
The number of mobile phone video viewers worldwide has shown significant growth each year since the early stages of smartphones. Video sharing platforms such as YouTube have been paving the way in user-generated content, content curation and entertainment from music to sport.
Companies interested in building OTT products who are new to the industry should start by looking at those early stages which Netflix and others took inspiration from. Today, mobile video’s growth is undeniable, yet there is still so much of it to explore and unlock — and it will certainly continue to evolve.
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