By: Nitin Kumar Dwivedi, Sr. Executive Business Development - Media & Entertainment

As we step into yet another year of Digital experimentation and intensifying competitions, media conglomerates are stepping into the next phase of ‘Over The Top video (OTT) Revolution’. Companies in this space are in a much better position to augment and harness the numerous lessons learned over the past few years of OTT’s existence, and to be better equipped with required people, processes and technology to be able to implement new and emerging business models, meet consumer expectations, produce digital-only content, and deliver best-in-class user experience.

While the growing demand for ‘Content’ continues to be aggressive in every sector of the market (both mature & emerging) around the world, major OTT providers are investing heavily in their digital content (local & international markets), and infrastructure to deliver uninterrupted services, high quality content with increasing on-demand / personalized content consumption amongst consumers. On the other hand, consumers continue to prefer on-demand videos; while the battle for Big Data, Data Science, and Personalized Ads grows more intense by every frame of minute. With enhanced technology and right focus on Data Science & Analytics, media conglomerates are deriving better success ratio with their data-led approach to content creation, segmentation and targeting.

While the US and European regions get maximum attention for OTT viewing trends, the most rapid growth rates will be seen in less-developed markets & economies, where Media and Entertainment spending on a per capita basis is generally quite low. This increased consumer demand in emerging markets, and the proliferation of new devices could prove to be a challenge to those advertisers who are thinking about how to take advantage of this massive shift in the way the consumers consume content. Watch-out regions to look for in 2018 from OTT growth and consumption perspective; these are APAC regions with China and India being top two markets. In order to get more closer to their customers (both to consumers and to brands), media companies will look for more M&A activity.

Advertisers have long followed & leveraged the model of a Linear medium to get the consumer audiences. As per PWC report, traditional TV revenue will decrease slightly to USD 105 billion by 2021, as physical media in the home video segment continues to taper off. Pay-TV penetration will also wane, as business models evolve with customer tastes. As consumers move away from standard cable-bundled packages and go cord-less, the shift in their consumption of personalized OTT content and experiences, changes. Advertisers also need to rethink & rebuild models for delivering their messages more efficiently- as connected TV combines the best of both Non-Linear and Linear media.

Another latent challenge in scaling OTT is contending with international regulatory and privacy standards for video publishers and advertisers. Though regulatory obligations tend to be higher in the European market, than in places such as the US, companies who are on the verge of expanding globally and finding an easy and cost-effective way of dealing with privacy standards in each of the new markets, will be a top priority for OTT leaders.

Content metadata, technology, data science and user experience are augmenting the OTT industry in 2018, and bringing the consumers closer. Production houses are implementing new ideas to become more efficient, amplifying their outcomes with personalized content and scripting new patterns for content delivery; leading us to expect to see more nuances erupt in OTT.