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Video: In a Crowded Market, How Can OTT Services Compete?

Learn more about OTT content aggregation and discovery at Streaming Media's next event.

Watch the complete panel from OTT Leadership Summit, OTT101. 2019: The Year of Direct-to-Consumer Video Services?, in the Streaming Media Conference Video Portal.

Read the complete transcript of this clip:

Stefan Van Engen: More people are taking pieces of the pie and consumers are not stupid. A lot of people are sort of cutting cable, cutting the costs on those bills and then they start adding up Hulu, Netflix, Disney, ESPN+, and they're going, "Wait a minute, I'm paying more than if I just got cable." And I like to say I'm a reformed content person. But I now work on the distribution and platform side. And somebody asked me, well you know, "20 years, you're an executive producer, you sold shows, you did this. Content is king and I said I would love to believe that but it's really free is king."

What you see in the last couple of months is consumers trending towards the free streaming platforms as they try to be cost-conscious on cable, cost-conscious on SVODs. It's where--not to be self-promotional but it's where XUMO plays in that space." It's a direct-to-consumer experience built directly into TVs, so if you buy a LG Smart TV and you do your Smart TV setup, it scans for channels and it brings in 160 free channels that are ad-supported. And it goes to your point about lean-back experiences and discovery, people aren't sort of DJ'ing their way through VOD, thumbnails, or shows, or having to sit down to decide. They're just flipping channels and leaning back and engaging in that way and it becomes the UI, it becomes the cost, and it becomes sort of the discovery.

Peggy Dau: I was just going to say that content may be king but I think the experience is the queen. And the queen is always the power behind the throne. And by experience, it's how do you find what you're looking for? How do you interact with whatever service it is? So whether it's free or paid or SVOD or AVOD, TVOD, doesn't matter. It's about that experience as a subscriber. How easy is it for me to interact with this UI? How easy is it for me to subscribe and unsubscribe? Because the idea of all these SVODs and AVODs, right, is that you're gonna come in and maybe you're going to binge and watch for awhile and then you're going to go out again. Is it easy to do, is it easy to manage? Can you actually find the content you want? How many people here have spent more than 60 seconds trying to find something to watch on Netflix? That's a lot of time. What makes it easier and maybe that comes to you.

Stefan Van Engen: And Hulu would say that, right? Hulu says they have about 30 seconds to capture somebody.

Peggy Dau: That's exactly why I used that number.

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