OTT is hot at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas. Not surprising that both consumers and providers are equally enthusiastic about OTT video services. Early this week, Amazon announced a stand alone video streaming service to take on Netflix and Hulu. Also membership on Prime now has a monthly option of $8.99 instead of only the $99/year. Amazon’s move indicates that it wants to build one ecosystem that users are comfortable with. “The ecosystem we’re creating is all seamless,” Amazon’s VP of Digital Video Michael Paull says, “Consumers just want to watch their program, not figure out where all the buttons are in the app.”
Cord cutting is happening but not at the hyped pace as reported by some. Even Paull expressed that Pay TV is going to die any time soon. Howard Horowitz, president of Horowitz Research, said “There is no denying that we are in an age of disruption. What we see, though, are two trends happening in parallel. Viewers’ love of television is growing and, simultaneously, streaming is becoming increasingly commonplace,” Horowitz says. “People are not moving to streaming for the sake of wanting to stream. They are moving to streaming because they want more access to the great content they love, and this is a key opportunity area.”
Source: CED Magazine
