An on-demand video subscription isn't just for Christmas... Oh. It is Premium video content is a must have for the Christmas period and to avoid missing out consumers are signing up to a multitude of over-the-top (OTT) services, but this will only be a festive fling for a large proportion. According to results of a recent survey from UK subscription and billing specialist PayWizard, 69 per cent …
"It's supposed to indicate that it's supplementary to normal Over The Air (OTA) broadcast."
Wrong!
As Wikipedia says:
"In broadcasting, over-the-top content (OTT) refers to delivery of audio, video, and other media over the Internet without the involvement of a multiple-system operator in the control or distribution of the content."
"Some of us are old enough to remember it was the "grown up" version of TISWAS."
That won't be the '25-35 core demographic' though.
It's been my perception that that age group don't like to watch anything made before they were born (or anything subtitled for that matter), so it's no wonder they are running out of content*
*But that might just be the people of that age I know...
Just about all the OTT operators use the same model: a subscription plan consisting of a large catalogue of mediocre and old content with a few "must watch" exclusives to persuade the punters to pick them rather than their competitors, and little or no (or vastly over-priced) opportunity for non-subscribers to pay a one-off charge to watch an exclusive. However the rational response of those punters is to subscribe only until they've watched those exclusives, then jump ship to the next operator and start over, hence the churn. Unless that model changes, eye-watering churn rates will inevitably continue.
Sky's bright move in the UK was to lock up sports coverage almost entirely, making it effectively impossible for those who consider sport a deal-breaker to switch.
"Sky's bright move in the UK was to lock up sports coverage almost entirely, making it effectively impossible for those who consider sport a deal-breaker to switch"
To which BT Group finally responded, by having BT Sport pay even sillier prices for some allegedly interesting sports, and passing the costs on to the whole BT Retail customer base (by substantially increasing line rental and call charges, at a time when 'regulated' wholesale costs are stable or decreasing:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6772-openreach-line-rental-charges-continue-to-diverge-from-retail-price.html)
A large catalog of inexpensive content. The providers don't particularly care what makes the content in their catalog cheap. "mediocre" is subjective, and "old" content is actually attractive to many subscribers.
Certainly there's a lot of churn, and certainly there are many subscribers who are just interested in cherry-picking a limited number of titles that appeal to them. But others have broader tastes, or at any rate tastes less beholden to the exclusive and new.
I need to catchup, the last time I rented a film* was on VHS from Blockbusters in London. Even they had a small foreign film section. I've looked at Netflix and Love Film but they seem to have a load of crappy stuff of no interest to me.
*FWIW it was "The Legend of the Holy Drinker", I would watch it again.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095513/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Recommended viewing for laughs, "Black Cat White Cat"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118843/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Happy Christmas everyone :)
Quote
Premium video content is a must have for the Christmas period
No it is not.
Who says so?
Does the writer of this piece work for a streaming company?
If anyone dared give me a subscription to ANYTHING, then they would be off my crimble list for ever.
Yours,
A Grumpy Old Man...
Skinflint, scrooge etc
Bah humbug.
It's Christmas. On Xmas day either you are in a stupor caused by port/mulled wine/a small sherry enhanced by chocolate brazils and chocolate coins, or you are trying to sleep off a protein- and carbohydrate- (bread sauce and roast potatoes - yum yum) rich meal.
You will be vaguely awake for HM the Q's message but will come round in time for the evening's highlights. As news comes on at 10-ish, realise that Christmas Day is effectively over.
Boxing Day - you are considering whether to have left over sausages wrapped in bacon and sage and stuffing for breakfast. Then you have to clear up remaining scraps of wrapping paper from yesterday. Possibly you are expected to drive your partner to the shops for the sales. If not you have the choice of clearing the kid's bedroom to fit in all the new toys they have been given, or starting on the DVDs from that boxset you have been given. The evening is given over to more food, with friends or relatives.
Day after boxing day - visit more relatives, or relatives visit you. Children have been monopolising TV for new games for their games console for the last 24 hours.
No idea what day is it. Probably have to go back to work tomorrow. For some reason there is no food left in house. Go shopping. Remember you haven't been on internet in 72 hours - catchup all the usual websites. While there, browse Amazon for 2 hours to find something to spend a £10 voucher your aunt gave you.
No - no room for anything other than broadcast TV's finest.
Just bought a chromecast2.
£30 from Pcworld, came with a £20 Google play movies voucher, and a 2 month SkyNow movies pass.
Will I be subscribing after they run out?
I doubt it, I have even struggled to use previous free passes anyway.
I do use Blinkbox or Play movies now and then, but I fail to see any value in a monthly subscription.
For older content, it is often cheaper to buy a DVD off ebay or a car boot than it is to rent it for one night.
"For older content, it is often cheaper to buy a DVD off ebay or a car boot than it is to rent it for one night."
Most of our charity shops are selling DVDs as cheaply as 50p - boxed sets for a little more. Some are still in their original shrink-wrap. Such DVDs are often the de-luxe edition with lots of extras.
Even the modern equivalent of the pawnbroker is selling them at no more than £1. A dedicated CD/DVD recycling shop mainly sells them as "3 for £5" or similar. Oxfam is the exception - but they often overprice their second-hand goods.
"Even the modern equivalent of the pawnbroker is selling them at no more than £1"
...and now you know why the content industry is so keen to switch to non-transferable no-second-sale "you're just licensing the right to consume this shit" digital distribution models.
OXFAM overpricing tends to be due to their over reliance on web searches. They often check online to see what sort of price things sell for (according to mate who volunteers there periodically), but management seem to take an approach of price matching the most expensive rather than matching / undercutting least expensive.
Similar on books - way more expensive than local second hand book shops
The TV viewing model is extremely flawed and the sooner everyone realizes the better. At the moment, the model is like a Japanese restaurant, where the food is delivered on small conveyor belts. The only difference is, you have to pay for everything on the belt, no matter what you take from it. You can also pay again for an all you can eat buffet (Netflix), and then yet another all you can eat buffet (Amazon Prime) and so on...
You can only watch one thing at a time, so in the end, you are paying more and more for things you aren't going to watch. If you're watching a film on Sky Movies, you aren't watching the football on BT sport, but if you've subscribed, you're still paying for it. Going on holiday for two weeks is throwing away around £70 if you have all the packages with Virgin or Sky.
A fairer model would be for the delivery owners (Virgin/Sky/BT etc.) to charge per hour for the type of content you watch). Free to air would be included in the base costs. Movies etc. would be £1-£2 hour.
I doubt that would ever happen though.
I'd love to have something to watch during the holiday season, but OTT doesn't seem to like Eastern Europe and in my experience all the regular cable channels revert to brain-dead mode between Christmas and New Year's Eve - it's either day-long reality show re-run marathons or 20-year old stuff everyone saw at least a 101 times (Home Alone MDCLXII and E.T. used to do the rounds every. single. year. a while back, but I think we're safe now...)
Want to know why SKY has a low churn rate..
Just ask anyone who has spent over an hour on the phone trying to cancel a subscription.
SKY: But why do you want to cancel ?
Cust: None of your business please just cancel me
SKY: We need to know why so we can improve our service
Cust: None of your business; I'm out of lock in period please cancel me.
SKY : ........
Ad nauseum for nearly an hour in my experience before they finally gave in
My advice just cancel the DD and drop them a registered letter saying you are cancelling.
Their rationale is here http://help.sky.com/articles/remove-a-package-or-cancel-your-subscription
I suppose you could give a fake reason "there's too much/not enough of homosexuality/monster truck racing/1950s films/Korean opera when you want it/need it badly/are ignoring your partner"
Those with Terrestial programming will do better. People are lazy. The prospect of having to CHOOSE a programme is like hard work for customers. I do not know what I want to watch. Help me. tell me.
At least with BBC you have time and date or programmes which have been chosen, you can make a limited choice, ordered in a time line, and may watch something you never thought you would like. The other services offer too much, and much crap as well.
The news can be got for free on line, but many cough up for a paywall newspaper or the economist because you have an edited content and layout. Terrestial broadcasting forces suppliers to have a discipline in organising content.
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