Over the past decade, television in the Middle East has undergone a massive upheaval. Upstarts like icflix and istikana have challenged incumbents on the distribution and consumption of video.
They have undermined traditional broadcast through IP-based delivery and radically altered the television experience, empowering viewers with different ways to watch and more ways to interact, thus creating a new status quo for television experience.
What does content share have in common? Viewers can consume it from any device, and from anywhere in the world. One of the most profound impacts that the new players are bringing to the traditional television experience is changing where and when people can watch the content.
They are no longer tied to the couch as IP delivery enables the opportunity at any time through access across myriad devices. The incumbent players are rapidly following suit.
Many broadcasters have launched alternative, IP-based offerings to enable their viewers to access content from different devices (i.e., MBC’s Shahid TV, Go OSN, and beIN SPORTS).
Although it hasn’t happened yet in the Middle East’s television broadcasting market, there is a significant trend-building in North America — broadcasters are starting to offer content directly to consumers. HBO GO is doing so and so is CBS, one of the three major US networks. Dish Network, a satellite provider, is cobbling together a streaming package for cord-cutters.
The success of these ventures may have a ripple effect in the Middle East by providing a clear example of how to decouple content from traditional linear delivery and engage with consumers directly. Although it’s difficult to say if there will ever be a full a-la-carte approach to traditional broadcast content, it’s clear that unshackling content from the broadcaster is what consumers want.
Perhaps the biggest underlying change that new entrants are bringing to the television experience is how viewers consume content. Sure, it’s on smaller screens but that’s not really revolutionary.
Some countries have had DVB-H implementation for years. With the shift from traditional broadcast (whether terrestrial or satellite) to IP, content can now be integrated into an application experiences enabling distributors to wrap a more immersive experience around it.
Consumers get the benefit of enjoying the content and simultaneous engagement with fellow viewers via social media. The result is a richer content consumption experience.
One of the by-products of this shift to IP-based content distribution is that everything is becoming digital. This enables a layering of technology on the content that wasn’t possible in a traditional television experience.
Think image recognition — consumers can click on items in the video for more information or to make a purchase.
Think search — thanks to closed-captioning, consumers can quickly find what they are looking for deep within the video content. This is just scratching the surface. By building a rich and interactive video experiences, newer entrants have enabled a completely new dimension to what we consider ‘watching TV’.
One thing is clear — the genie is out of the bottle. Television will never be the same. Although OTT (over-the-top) represents less than 1 per cent of the TV market size in 2014, there is a clear pathway to meteoric growth.
Consumers want any time, anywhere access and IP-based content delivery is cheaper than traditional channels. It’s a win-win for both incumbents and pure-play OTT providers.
But market maturity won’t just be a product of continued innovation. Although we will see new features and technologies over coming years, as well as a possible direct-to-consumer model, success of OTT initiatives will be measured by time as new consumer behaviour continues to drive change in the traditional television experience.
The writer is the Regional Director at Limelight.
