Researcher sees OTT threat to traditional pay TV operators a few years away

Will OTT delivery of video content seriously threaten pay TV operators? That's not likely to happen for at least a few years, says Paul Erickson, a researcher with IMS Research and author of new study on the OTT market.

Cable TV operators, for instance, haven't been sitting still while OTT makes inroads. They are adapting and integrating the OTT experience on a limited basis into their service offerings, he says.

Besides, the content available via OTT delivery does not match today's programming packages on cable, satellite and IPTV, he adds.

In this, the second of a two-part podcast interview with Erickson, the author discusses the real source of pay TV subscriber churn, the efforts of pay TV operators to adopt OTT-like offerings within the user experience they offer and what his research found out about whether the future availability of Internet bandwidth can sustain OTT service growth.

Phil Kurz

Phil Kurz is a contributing editor to TV Tech. He has written about TV and video technology for more than 30 years and served as editor of three leading industry magazines. He earned a Bachelor of Journalism and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism.