Aggregation, Personalization, and Other Ways to ‘Own’ Your OTT Subscribers
Partnering with ISPs and telcos to bundle and aggregate content has emerged as an essential strategy for combatting churn and hanging onto customers in the subscription OTT space, but to really “own” the subscriber takes personalizing the experience and other strategies for enhancing subscription value, as Women in Streaming Media Head of Allyship Deepali Narsiker and Philo Head of Product Marketing Steven Chang discuss with Chris Pfaff Tech Media Founder Chris Pfaff in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.
A Complementary Service
Pfaff addresses Narsiker, “We’re seeing some pretty good success with the bundled offerings and ISP integrations. Talk to me about where you’re seeing that, because I think that that’s shown some notable retention improvements.”
Narsiker replies, “I think aggregation is becoming really important because consumers want simplicity and value, and they don’t necessarily want to manage 10 different subscribers, and that’s where telcos have a great opportunity. But for the niche and independent platforms, I don’t think that answer is to compete with the big bundles or prices. You probably can’t win that game.” She advocates for becoming “a complementary service” instead; companies can partner with other services for extending reach and discovery to help acquire subscribers, “but I wouldn’t become completely dependent on them,” she cautions. Holding onto subscribers “and to make them watch more content and subscribe to your service every month, month on month, is all about the discovery. Use the ecosystem for acquisitions, but keep bundling.”
Aggregation as Smart Strategy
Narsiker believes services can build a relationship with customers through their app, customer relationship management, content discovery, and communities. “And I think everyone has a great opportunity there because once the subscriber is in, it’s all about the discovery game because the subscriber has shown the intention to watch the content on your platform. One show was a gateway, but there is a huge opportunity [in the] ocean of content,” she notes, to “hook that subscriber with the different recommendations.”
Narsiker concludes, “So aggregation is great; it’s a very smart strategy with the telcos. It gives you the reach, but it is not the endgame. It’s the entry.” She makes another point about retention, noting that companies need to ensure that the process of bringing the subscriber in and helping them with discovery is seamless. “So let the aggregation give you the reach, but make sure that you still own the subscriber with the relationship, with the great metadata, great recommendations, personalization, and what the subscriber wants to watch.”
Bundling to Increase Retention
Pfaff asks Chang to “talk a little bit about where Philo is sort of combining paid and free. FAST is something that you use a little bit as a landing pad, if you will. Talk about that strategy for retaining subscribers.”
Chang notes, “We launched our first bundled package last year, and the reports are correct. Bundling does increase retention. Even though we’re a value-based service, basically we added a package that, in addition to the basic 70-plus cable channels, we also offer access to HBO Max, AMC Plus, Discovery Plus, for an extra eight bucks. So even though it’s a more expensive price point than our original lower price point, we still see actually a lift in retention. So bundling does also work for us.”
FAST as a Back Porch
He describes Philo’s recent FAST launch as “very topical with Disney [and] Netflix recently announcing that they’re exploring FAST services of their own, more so in the context of providing a front porch, like a freemium model borrowed from the gaming industry. But at Philo, we actually see that FAST serves just as importantly as a back porch, and that’s where it becomes a really, really great strategy for retention.” Chang provides the example “of a user who comes in to watch a specific season premiere and a first season [or] second season of a show, when that show ends and if they decide to turn from our paid service, we don’t necessarily count it as a loss if we can get them to stay within the ecosystem as a FAST user. So in that instance, we’re actually thinking of those users as just changing states by keeping their relationship within Philo.”
Join us November 9–11, 2026 for more thought leadership, actionable insights, and lively debate at Streaming Media Connect 2026! Registration is open!
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