Cover Story
Is pay-TV on its deathbed ?
The advent of the global pandemic , coinciding with a move by studios and rights-holders to market directly to the consumer , has seemingly accelerated cord-cutting trends . The pandemic , at the same time , has emphasised that the key demand on a service provider is to offer fast reliable comms , given the changed working , leisure and education circumstances . Do these phenomena signal the impending demise of pay-TV as we know it ? Colin Mann put some leading questions to a range of industry players , then stood well back .
If pay-TV is on its deathbed , who will deliver the final blow ? Content providers turning to D2C or network providers turning to highmargin bandwidth provision ? “ Twenty years ago , family video consumption meant watching linear channels on the TV screen ,” recalls Abdul Haleem , director of strategic accounts - Asia , Accedo . “ Today linear channels are no longer appealing to the mass market . These days , video providers need to cater for the younger generation which wants to watch what they want , where and when they want to watch it . This is a trend that has been accelerating way before Covid . The fact that many people are suddenly at home more , watching more content than ever before , and adapting to new work / life schedules has also meant that VoD is a better fit for most people , which is further accelerating that trend .”
“ In my opinion , the pay-TV operators with years of business track record , mass subscriber base and a strong brand presence can remain relevant provided that they dare to change and transform . Being an aggregator is one way to do it . Bear in mind some pay-TV operators , especially in Asia , also invest massively on content production , which is in high demand . In the direct-to-consumer world , network providers are the biggest disruptor , challenging the status quo for pay-TV operators .”
“ The exception to the rule , and perhaps pay-TV ’ s saving grace is live sports . With live
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“ Pay-TV operators can remain relevant provided that they dare to change and transform .” - Abdul Haleem , Accedo
sports returning , many sports fans are willing to subscribe to a pay-TV service if it gives them access to those sports events . According to a recent report from Parks Associates , 55 per cent of pay-TV households cite live sports as an important factor when deciding whether to stay subscribed .” EXAGGERATED . “ I ’ m pretty sure that video content will never be entirely financed through advertising , so the question becomes : Will pay- TV remain one of the key ways that consumers pay to watch content ,” states Jamie Mackinlay , SVP global sales and marketing , Amino . “ At Amino and 24i we think that the subscription model will continue to thrive and that both OTT and the delivery of video through managed networks ( pay-TV ) will have their place . Every year we produce two surveys : The Amino Voice of the Customer and The Amino Voice of the Customer survey . Consistently these surveys tell us that consumers want it all ; they love the flexibility of OTT , but also really like and have become used to the robustness and high-quality of a managed network pay-TV experience . They want a better , more professional experience from OTT , and they want more flexibility and wider choice from pay-TV . It ’ s our belief that reports of the death of pay-TV are exaggerated : Pay-TV will continue to co-exist and crossfertilise with OTT and SVoD , AVoD and other VoD flavours . The consumers ’ desire for a high quality TV experience with great useability will ensure that pay-TV has an important role to play in future decades .”
According to Guy Bisson , director , Ampere Analysis , the threat to pay-TV varies “ massively ” by region . “ Terminal decline in the US ; early , stark decline in Latin America , most other regions flat , some growth left ,” is his summary of where pay-TV is heading . “ The bigger question is , longer term , what ’ s been going on and also the effect . There are opportunities and threats and it ’ s a continuum of shades of grey .”