Pay-TV players needs to start investing in hybrid and OTT technologies: Nagra

  • Traditional pay-TV service providers are well placed to take advantage of these new consumer behaviour and industry trends.  
  • Asia Pacific pay-TV industry will grow by 5.8% annually from US$54 billion in 2016 to US$72 billion in 2021

Pay-TV players needs to start investing in hybrid and OTT technologies: Nagra

WITH the increasing number of video on demand (VOD) over-the-top (OTT) players growing their presence in South East Asia, traditional pay-TV players will need to start investing in hybrid and OTT technologies in order to stay relevant with their target audiences.

"Traditional pay-TV service providers, with their ability to leverage both the app and channel models on mobile and large TV screens to deliver aggregated content services, are well placed to take advantage of these new consumer behaviour and industry trends.  

"Yet they have to invest now in new hybrid and OTT technology to keep their leading position as the aggregator of the best content available.  Many of our leading customers worldwide have started to engage with us to drive this strategic transformation effort," said NAGRA South East Asia general manager Stéphane Le Dreau in an interview recently.

According to a report by Media Partners Asia, titled Asia Pacific Pay-TV and Broadband Markets, the region's pay-TV industry will grow by 5.8% annually from US$54 billion in 2016 to US$72 billion in 2021.

It also highlighted that India and Korea remain two of the region's largest and most scalable pay-TV opportunities, and that subscriber growth declined or substantially decelerated in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Pay-TV players needs to start investing in hybrid and OTT technologies: Nagra

Le Dreau (pic above) said that the industry is going through a period of transformation, and the service providers are facing intensifying competition and business model disruption.

"Individual markets within the region are at varying stages of change and evolutkiion.The Pay TV Innovation Forum, a research program launched by NAGRA, in partnership with leading research consultancy MTM, found that the Asia Pacific is fragmented, with strong differences between markets in terms of economic development, demographics, geography, penetration of broadband and pay-TV, and content preferences. 

"As a result, there is a huge divide in the growth and technology adoption between advanced markets and emerging markets in the region," he said.

As the Asia Pacific market becomes more fragmented, pay-TV operators will need to better understand their consumers'  needs and behaviour.

"Today, consumers are looking for a seamless, easy-to-use TV experience combining linear and on-demand viewing across all screens.

"To stay relevant, they will need to constantly innovate and adjust their business models and offerings to provide the content consumers want, when they want it and on the platform of their choice," said Le Dreau.

"In short, the one-size-fits-all model is no longer viable."

He also added that there will be a stronger collaboration between pay-TV operators and OTT providers in order to fully satisfy consumers' viewing appetite. For example: NAGRA partnered with Starhub to launched the Netflix subscription video on demand (SVOD) service on its Fibre TV platform and blending Internet TV services into a pay-TV offering.

 

 
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