What is OTT?

In broadcasting, over-the-top content (OTT) refers to delivery of audio and video over the Internet without using a traditional cable or satellite connection.

At the moment, websites like YouTube, Netflix and Daily Motion provide a lot of the OTT video content. Some recently conducted studies show that OTT is growing faster than expected and PwC’s latest data predicts that television’s age-old dominance of the advertising sector will soon be bumped to second place by the Internet.

Here are some more very interesting facts:

• There were 90 million households worldwide watching Internet video in 2011 and there will be over 250 million OTT households by 2016.
• The OTT segment is predicted to rise to a value of $10.1 billion in 2018, up from just a relatively meagre $3.3 billion last year. This not only means that typical video is out, but also that DVD and Blu-ray revenue for streaming will surpass that for discs by the end of 2016.
• By 2018, 33% of total advertising revenue is forecast to be digital, compared to 17% of consumer revenue.
• Mobile Internet is driving the change with penetration reaching 55% in 2018 and digital advertising increasing its share of total advertising revenue to 33% by 2018.
• In 2013, US advertisers generated $7.08 billion in mobile Internet ad revenue, up 110.2% from 2012.
• By 2016, mobile will overtake display to become the number two Internet advertising channel in the US.

So, more and more people are leaving TV packages in favour of online video. Comcast’s broadband customer ‘roll call’ exceeded that of its TV customers for the first time on record and HBO Now, Now TV (Sky), YouView, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple have all expressed keen interest in moving into online content. This will allow content providers to introduce their own direct-to-customer channels and is going to lead to a big increase in hiring within Digital Marketing and Brand Strategy for broadcasters.

Moreover, the rapid development in the Apps market allows end devices to decode the IP content enabling online digital content to be streamed onto more screens and increasing the number of touch points in the customer journey.

As digital experience becomes more transferable across sectors, some very interesting patterns will be created in the TMT (Telecom, Media & Technology) Strategy recruitment. The most important one of them is a sudden increase in employers keen to meet candidates with a mixture of high-level strategic experience, project management and product development, as well as generalist candidates or those with experience in more consumer-facing industries.

Alyce would be interested in speaking to you if you are looking to recruit for TMT roles or have consumer facing strategic experience focused on digital products and are keen to move into TMT.

Alyce Perrott covers TMT Strategy positions across niche strategy boutiques, accounting firms and the leading strategy houses. Please contact her on alyce.perrott@investigo.co.uk or +44 (0) 20 7194 7857.