With the popularity of global and regional OTT services on the rise, there is an increasing threat of losing high value customers and cord cutting for Pay TV operators in SEA. According to recent surveys, a quarter of Pay TV subscribers in Philippines and Singapore are planning to cut the cord over the next 12 months with 20% of the remaining Pay TV subscribers intending to downgrade to a cheaper pack. This trend can also be observed in Thailand where a third of Pay TV subscribers are planning to cut the cord over the next 12 months and another third are looking to downgrade to a cheaper package.
Naturally, Pay TV operators in Asia are alarmed. They are leveraging their existing content libraries to launch their own OTT services to retain their existing customer base as well as to attract new customers.
Despite the advantage of having existing content partners, a customer base and marketing dollars, pay TV companies are finding it tough to compete within the OTT space. For instance, “Redbox instant” a collaboration between Verizon and Redbox was forced to shut down within 19 months from initial launch as It failed to gain traction.
What do payTV operators’ OTT service offerings need to do to succeed?
A compelling OTT video service has to offer more than just a content library – it needs to provide the right user experience (UX) across the all following areas:
Content Proposition: breadth, depth, and exclusivity of content offering
Accessibility: Ease of locating content available on the platform
Interface: Ease of navigating and stability of platform technology
Video player functionality: Fast forward, scrubbing, event markers, ease of binge watching, and number of steps required to access other features such as changing videos from the video player
Fig 1: Comparison of two OTT video services using PCA’s OTT UX framework
