Online Video Platforms reach the cross-roads…

Online video players and platforms have enjoyed something of a novelty in the last few years. The reality is that for the majority of UK consumers, the ability to watch TV content on your PC has been a pleasant surprise – and as such, hasn’t had too heavy a burden of expectation placed upon it regards quality comparisons to trusty linear TV.

So what’s changed? For me its two things – and they both start with ‘i’. The first (being ‘player’) has genuinely raised the bar in terms of what quality means in online video – both in terms of playout quality (i.e. the smoothness of the playback), and the quality of the interface, choice and searchability. The second ‘i’ (of course being pad) – has really driven the surge of multi-screen demand that everyone expected to come with mobile phones – as it turned out, size (of screen) mattered.

So what’s this got to do with business cases and dilemmas? Well, the upshot is that for consumers of broadcaster content on-line, ‘good enough’ is no-longer good enough. Thanks in part to the two i’s, they expect quality and they expect it everywhere. And this, of course, is where we find our dilemma – quality counts, but it also costs. And it’s this dilemma – and everything else monetisation and advertising that comes with it - which is going to drive a next generation of online solutions, and just maybe, new ways of paying for them…