In Broadcast - March 2018 - 39

39

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 8 - Issue 3 | March 2018

InForm

Predicting The 2018
OTT Broadcast Trends
Anevia CTO Damien Lucas examines the emerging broadcast trends
of viewing content in 2018...

2

017 was yet another hugely
successful
year
for
OTT
broadcasters and operators. Research
from Business Insider UK found that
12.6 billion hours of content were
viewed using OTT services in 2017 -
more than double that of the year
before - with 90% of 25 to 34 year-olds
and 78% of 35 to 49 year-olds saying
they now access TV content from the
Internet.
As the popularity of OTT services
continues to disrupt traditional
television viewing, there are several
trends that will emerge and help shape
the OTT journey as we work our way
through 2018.
Evolution Of Multicast ABR
This year will see the broadcast
world realise the full potential of
multicast ABR (adaptive bitrate)
for streaming content to viewers -
particularly in live TV situations. In
conjunction with a content delivery
network, multicast ABR has proved
itself to be an incredibly effective
way of delivering live TV content to
millions of viewers - across a variety
of different devices - without having
to struggle with bandwidth capacity
issues during unexpected traffic peaks.
What we will see over 2018, however,
is an increased emphasis of deploying
OTT services for viewers outside of
the home. As more people choose to
stream live content on their devices

of devices. To do this, however, they
need to ensure they have the correct
infrastructure in place to be able to
deliver a secure, reliable and costefficient multiscreen TV service.
Performance quality lies at the heart
of this: no matter what kind of device
viewers are watching content on, they
will always expect a great quality of
service.

over LTE networks, operators and
broadcasters need to get ahead of the
game and opt for a single technology
compatible with both LTE-broadcast
and multicast ABR that can deliver a
smooth, seamless viewing experience
for people wherever they might be.
Hotel OTT & Catch-Up TV
Streaming has now become the new
norm within many homes. Instead of
flicking through our channel guides to
see what's currently on, many of us
have become accustomed to firing up
Netflix, Amazon Prime or a catch-up TV
service and picking up where we left
off in our new favourite box set.
Seeing as this is what we are now
comfortable with, it only makes sense

The new "small screen" experience

that the hospitality industry should
respond to this cultural shift. If hotels
really want to make their guests feel
at home, then they need to give them
access to an entertainment service
that feels innately familiar to them,
catch-up TV and OTT services play
a huge part in this. Implementing
catch-up content and OTT services as
standard in hotel rooms can also form
a part of the wider 'hotel of the future',
where every service and amenity is
personalised to the guests' needs and
preferences.
Multiscreen Viewing
The days of watching TV exclusively
on the big screen are now long gone,
and 2018 will continue to see more
and more of us enjoying our favourite
content on other devices. Indeed, in
January of this year, the BBC reported
on the annual Childwise research
which found that children aged
between five and 16 "are more likely
to watch programmes and videos on
devices such as laptops and mobile
phones, rather than on television
screens".
This trend opens up significant
opportunities for broadcasters, who
have the opportunity to deliver their
content to more consumers than ever
before, over a much larger number

Virtualisation
The last few years have seen
broadcasters develop innovative new
methods for improving operational
efficiency, and the concept of
virtualisation takes this to the next
level. Virtualisation is essentially a
term used to describe 'virtual servers'
that can be fired up at will to support
specific applications and systems. For
a broadcaster, virtualisation could be
used to deploy servers that help to
cope with large, unexpected peaks in
traffic for certain channels or content,
all without needing to use up any
physical space whatsoever.
The technology behind virtualisation
is unsurprisingly complex, but 2018
could be the year where we are
finally able to reap its rewards. The
advantages are plentiful: it allows
for extreme scalability and elasticity
(the virtual servers can effectively be
switched 'on' and 'off' as required),
while also bringing in huge costsavings. Once the technology is in
place, it's also very quick to go straight
to market.
Streaming Advantage
There is no doubt that 2018
will be another exciting year for
broadcast, with many new trends
and technologies coming to the fore.
If businesses can take advantage of
these, while simultaneously convincing
those outside the broadcast realm to
take advantage of the opportunities
borne out of the streaming craze, we
will surely see OTT continue to cast a
looming shadow over the future of
traditional TV broadcasting.
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