"OTT" articles

The growth in both traditional OTTs and virtual  MVPDs has been the story of 2018 so far in the digital media marketplace. It seems every day a new service is launching, a new company is entering the space, and a new option for content emerges for consumers. Luckily for content companies, consumers appear receptive to this trend and have responded with subscriptions. According to data from early 2018, Virtual MVPDs have seen the largest growth of any type of OTT...

Stories about the pending purchase of 21 st Century Fox assets have dominated the media industry headlines over the past few weeks, with Comcast conceding to Disney’s $71 billion cash and stock offer for said assets. However, The United States’ Department of Justice recently ruled that they will approve a sale of these assets to Disney only if they agree to divest Fox’s 22 regional sports networks (RSNs) as part of the deal, due to monopoly concerns stemming from the...

Esports is going to be aired on ESPN during prime time. Activision Blizzard, the publisher of Overwatch , has announced a deal with Disney that will see the Overwatch League playoffs be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN 3, Disney XD, and ABC. While other esports such as Heroes of the Storm have been broadcast on Disney XD and ESPN before, this agreement will see the first day of the Overwatch League finals broadcast at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN with later highlights and analysis of the finals airing on...

Amazon created the new template for services seeking to create a one-stop shop for streaming media content with their Amazon Channels offering in late 2015. What started with a simple platform for content aggregation has turned into a new strategy for players in the OTT space to create a more desirable—and affordable—content offering for their consumer with the ease of convergent billing. Several platforms/services have followed Amazon’s lead in aggregating content...

By Brett Sappington and Billy Nayden What a great coincidence that AT&T’s acquisition of the company that brought us the power struggles of Westeros and Game of Thrones is likely to set off a new era of competition in pay TV. With a federal judge approving AT&T’s $85 billion buyout of Time Warner late Tuesday afternoon, the courts cleared a path for a number of imminent media deals that will undoubtedly bring substantial change to the media landscape....

OTT video is firmly established in the U.S. entertainment marketplace— more than two-thirds of U.S. broadband households have an OTT service —and the popularity of this service translates into hardware sales and usage. At first, connected gaming consoles were a leading connected entertainment platform, but as the market evolved, the race for to capture consumers’ video viewing is now between two device categories: smart TVs and streaming media players (SMPs). Many industry...

Movie theaters have lived a long life, having bolstered the financial health of the film industry for years and entertained millions of viewers. Theaters provide a unique blend of public and private entertainment, allowing us to experience the spectacle of film in our own seat but in a community of viewers. However, despite its position as a venue for the art of film, this unique channel for content distribution is struggling as it seeks a resurgence rather than a slow death....

Swedish startup, Cinezen Blockchained Entertainment, recently signed some of its first film distribution deals for its upcoming video-on-demand service, a global blockchain-based VOD service that will initially be based on the Ethereum protocol and cryptocurrency. Calling this new model Blockchain-Video-on-Demand (BVOD), Cinezen states that blockchain technology will provide a new level of transparency in accurate reporting of royalties for content creators by using a blockchain public...