OTT Not Necessarily Winning Hearts, Minds

According to a survey by CSG Systems International, over-the-top (OTT) video providers are not necessarily winning the battle to pull consumers and revenue away from pay TV providers. The survey of 1,200 U.S. consumers age 18-65 indicated that consumers are just as interested in purchasing digital content from their pay TV provider as they are from an OTT vendor. Among the findings:

• 71% of consumers are willing to buy content from OTT providers, while 70% are just as willing to buy from their pay TV provider.



• Nearly 71% of respondents want digital content charges on their pay TV providers' monthly bill. In the competition for market share, this gives pay TV providers an opportunity to leverage a convenient way of paying for digital content through their existing billing relationship with the consumer.



• The use of multiple devices to purchase and watch content is the new norm. While the majority of video content is still purchased in the household rather than over smartphones, consumers cite a growing number of devices in the home. Some 79% of consumers use their personal computer to order digital content, while 39% also use tablets and 36% use Internet-connected TVs. Smartphones ranked lowest of all devices, although ownership is highest. The ability of any provider to support multiscreen content purchases and delivery is a must to attract the digital content consumer.