It is undeniable that OTT has been taking over the entertainment industry ever since the growing popularity of Netflix. This does not apply only to customers in the Western hemisphere –even in the Asia Pacific, changes are apparent.

The changes possess a unique challenge for operators of pay-TV services.

In an interview with e27, Vewd CEO Aneesh Rajaram points out that while the latest industry reports show that the number of PayTV subscribers is still growing annually, the growth rate has been affected by the arrival of a new population who are getting more access to the internet via mobile phones or affordable broadband services at home.

“This population is starting to choose a different mode of video consumption habits than a traditional pay-TV subscription. This results in losing existing subscribers (cord-cutters) and also failing to attract the new younger demography,” he says.

Vewd is an OTT software provider for smart TV and set-top boxes devices. In this interview, Rajaram shares his insights on the growing trends of the ‘cord-never generation’, traditional pay-TV operators in Southeast Asia, and what it means for the entire entertainment industry.

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Everybody streams today

In this pivot from traditional methods of viewing videos to streaming content from anywhere, how can pay-TV operators compete with these platforms?

Aneesh believes that it is important to understand the key trends before the problem is addressed.

“The solution really would be for pay-TV subscribers to add streaming capabilities to their boxes to offer consumers more choice … and also to come up with new affordable devices for consumers to conveniently stream their preferred content,” he elaborates.

Although this might sound like pay-TV subscribers need to become OTT platforms altogether in order to float the waters. As daunting as it sounds, the statistics are in favour of the latter.

Gen Zs and millennials are more likely to stream than the Gen Ys and Gen Xs, this seems to be a widely known idea. But Rajaram says that it does not mean that the older cohorts –people aged 45-55-year-old– do not stream content.

“Even though Gen Zs and millennials stream more and more likely to use OTT services, the universal trend is that every home is starting to get streaming services and is likely to have at least one streaming service going forward,” he says.

The locational differences are mostly in the willingness to pay, in his opinion.

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Consumers in the Asia Pacific region are more likely to use advertisement-supported streaming services, compared to North American users who tend to go for more subscription-based services.

Local players in the sector such as Hotstar and Iflix are immensely using free advertisement-supported services to give consumers choices. This will eventually enable consumers to work their way into getting subscribers to pay on a monthly basis.

What is next for the entertainment industry

Netflix has been known to launch original content that is only available on its own platforms, such as Aaron Paul’s El Camino and Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery. In the Asia Pacific region, even popular Indian movie director Karan Johar launched his movie Drive exclusively on Netflix.

This trend has led industry players to believe that this is how streaming platforms are going to disrupt the film industry.

Interestingly, Rajaram actually believes that it will not disrupt but level the playing field in the entertainment industry.

“… By providing a lot more opportunities for large as well as independent studios to get their content distributed in the world. Traditionally, it used to be difficult for independent content creators to really produce content through content distribution ecosystem,” he explains.

But now, with the existence of OTT, the number of apps and services available in the home mean that these providers can license their content to multiple players –leading to more homes reached easily at the same time.

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Image Credit: Vewd

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