Parks Associates hosted the fourth in their Future of Video series, focusing on retention and churn in Over The Top (OTT) data, in addition to decision-making in video streaming services. Conversations centered around the data that drives content, the usability of platforms, and trends that are being seen in the OTT market.
When speaking of the OTT landscape, Elizabeth Parks astutely observed that “it’s like the wild wild west of business models right now,” with change, innovation, and new streaming territory being the norm. In this ‘wild west’, Netflix continues to dominate. This partly has to do with their being OTT pioneers, blazing the trail, and creating customer loyalty through curation content, impressive original content, and a famously user-friendly platform.
But pioneer status brings with it no lack of challenges, and Netflix has endured its share. One of these is the loss, in 2020, of the mega-hit series ‘The Office’, which ended its contract with Netflix and moved to Peacock. This, however, did not heavily impact their subscriber numbers, as the graph shows below.
This is, in part, due to the useability of the Netflix platform. “If content is King, then the queen is product experience,” Karsin Kron, Sales Director of NPAW stated in the panel discussion on data and decision making in video services. This is one of the reasons why people stay loyal to a streaming service. In this session, features such as personalization, algorithms, searching capabilities, and engagement were all mentioned as customer retention factors. This led the discussion to the topic of bundling.
Not only does bundling allow for ease of search through multiple platforms and a wider content net, but there are also cost savings. Traditionally, OTT services were thought of as cheaper alternatives to traditional cable. Now, with so many options and content spread across platforms, that cost is leveling out. Gabriel Berber, CEO of ThinkAnalytics shared that according to a US Department of Labor 2020 report, “the average annual expenditure on renting, streaming, and downloading video per consumer unit in the United States reached $64.83 U.S. dollars in 2019, nearly triple the figure recorded for 2015.”
We have seen Hulu take a strong lead in offering bundled services. Beyond the cost benefits, combining these services offers an opportunity for cross-platform synergy
Another solution for keeping costs low with streaming services is offering a tiered program. Peacock utilizes that strategy with three offerings; taking the clever approach of incentivizing upgraded service levels by spreading the seasons of popular offerings – The Office being a prime example – across tiers.
If content is king and product experience his queen, the importance of safeguarding that experience is clear. Everise has deep product experience support expertise, solving hardware and account management problems for tens of millions of streaming video subscribers throughout the US. Contact us to learn more about how we can leverage the advantages of our strategic geographic locations and proprietary AI-powered automation to save clients up to 65% on the cost of subscriber support.
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