3 Strategic components required to establish OTT/VOD platform

There’s a new wave of OTT platforms across the world and each of the players is trying to get a share in the pie which is growing even bigger as we advance in an era of digital content consumption and more and more cord cutting. 

However, the OTT platforms in the market today may not be visible tomorrow. Most of the Tier-1 platforms existing today do not make profits. Any entity that dares to be in play, can sustain for as long as it has deep pockets, beyond which business becomes unsustainable. All the OTT platforms currently are in a cash burning phase, creating originals and aspiring to lock-in customers to their platform. However, customers would never lock themselves to a particular platform and they will always look out for more and better choices.

The question is how long will the funds and content continue to flow in a never-ending spree to acquire consumers? How long can you burn the capital in the name of increased valuation? What is required to keep an OTT platform going or infuse longer life in it? The article analyzes the existing & future models in Video distribution space. 

Current Scenario 

Currently, there are 3 strategic components required to build a community to achieve a self-propagating OTT platform

1. Communication Strategy

1. Emphasis on an efficient communication strategy is the one which can reach maximum audience in minimum time and message distortion - Example MX Player, Netflix, Vimeo
1. Content Strategy

 .                Content specialization: A sustainable OTT model is the one which offers a mix of interesting content across genres to its audience of all age groups and regions. The quality of content and the magnitude of the involvement of a vibrant community where people drive the platform and keep it going. Example - Netflix, Prime

3. Content augmentation: Any OTT platform starts to penetrate among its audience only when the content quality is continuously improved and when audiences can satiate their appetite of consuming the best content and justify the subscription money. Example Disney Hotstar

 .                Non-fatigue content model: A non-fatigue OTT model is the one that keeps experimenting with new sorts of content every now and then and does not stick to a specific kind of content. For instance, drug wars cartel-based series ‘NARCOS’ became one of the highest watched series on Netflix giving the indication that such content is liked by audiences, but a similar series El Chapo that came right after could not become as popular as ‘NARCOS’ though it was equally good. Experiment with ’Sacred Games’ altered consumer taste to a different level in India. The reason being, audiences keep altering their content choices and don’t really stick to a specific kind of content. Netflix is such a no-fatigue model since not the platform but the creator and consumer community drives and curates the content which rules out the possibility of any kind of fatigue building up.

Futuristic scenario

Innovations in Blockchain & AI hold the power to redefine the newer models in content distribution and streaming space. The research reports also mention it.

“Video streaming market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0% from 2021 to 2028. Innovations, such as Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, to improve video quality are expected to boost the market growth”

-Grandviewresearch at

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/video-streaming-market

Collaborated Engagement Strategy is the New emerging model pioneered by The-Ally

a.              Synergistic: A fully transparent & collaborative platform that brings together all the stakeholders that are directly or indirectly associated to content creation and consumption value chain can engage a wider audience base instead of a scenario where each entity operates in isolation. The-Ally aims at bringing together all stakeholders and offer them a platform to:

                                                        i.to collaborate, showcase/sell services

                                                       ii.transparent execute the contracts

                                                      iii.experience real time and fair distribution of payments 

                                                      iv.Innovate & create new business models and revenue chains

b.     Advanced Digital infra layer: The newer model will rely on low-cost distribution models, leveraging a distributed technology ecosystem for processing and streaming services.  The technology cost HAS to come down in order to make a more affordable system where content is available easily and at a very affordable price. 

c.               Open platforms: Once the blockchain-based infrastructure and cost is taken care, the incentives for piracy of the content also can easily be addressed as the content onboarding and consumption are easily available. The-Ally, is powered by blockchain, a P2P technology that seeds the data from each connected node to the requesting device and hence aims to bring huge cost efficiencies in the system.

Hopefully, someday  there will be no need to set up costly servers or wait for expensive content to keep the services running continuously. Blockchain presents the most strategic and cost-effective approach to revolutionizing the OTT/LIVE/VOD platforms. We believe that the futuristic OTT models will be based on the following: 

1. A Capital light model
2. Community partnership model instead of regular high-end marketing model
3. One that provides level playing field to viewers of all geographies
4. One that democratizes film distribution, film appreciation economy which is a source for justifying revenues for all.

So what if we are perceived to be the 34th OTT/VOD platform in India? It really does not matter as the truth is that we are the first blockchain powered and community driven network, strategically positioned to achieve greater goals in the value chain going forward than just acquiring and streaming content to audiences in isolation.