In today’s time, Video on Demand (VOD) is the need of the hour. If you are a content owner, no matter how small or big, you can’t afford to miss out on upping your VOD game. In fact, even businesses outside the traditional Media & Entertainment industry are creating new business models with VOD as a foundational pillar.
If you are an individual or a small company, just starting out, VOD to you may mean a global video sharing platform like YouTube. Why, you ask? The answer is simple—zero entry cost and a global reach. Platforms like these are great for a start, but eventually you’ll realize that you are generating more revenue for them than yourself. What would you do next?
Your next step would be—launching your own VOD offering. But if you are still plagued by the question of whether to deliver video via VOD or linear, then remember: this is no longer an either/or decision. If you want to succeed, you got to mix them up.
We have seen that viewers are extremely comfortable accessing both linear and VOD formats. Both have become consumption formats of choice and are very complementary to each other.
The linear vs VOD debate
The pandemic led to some radical changes in the way people consume content. Linear TV made a strong comeback. Along with it, there was a good surge in broadcaster-VOD and subscription-VOD as well.
So, it all boils down to one thing—what kind of relationship do you share with your audience? Is your offering a direct-to-consumer proposition, with a clearly identifiable audience, whom you know and can quantify – and have ongoing communication with? Or do you see yourself as a content provider piggybacking alongside others, on top of existing platforms like Roku, Samsung, or YouTube TV.
Before developing your content strategy, you need to ask yourself just one thing—am I keeping my customers’ best interests in mind? If you think like your audience, ‘content discoverability’ will be the first thing to bother you. There might be some content gems hidden on your platform, but are they all discoverable? Do your customers know about their existence?
In a situation like this, Free Ad Supported TV (FAST) can help break this deadlock by continuously delivering a feed of viewer content, then introducing the essential element of serendipity.
Linear viewing on FAST channels leads customers to discover content they might want to explore further in VOD and vice versa. Linear then becomes an essential component in developing a VOD platform, giving customers the opportunity to find content they might not have otherwise encountered, then drill down deeper, via VOD, into related content and the customer journey created for them. Similarly, once a viewer has caught up with a favorite VOD content, she may resort to a schedule and watch linear TV.
This shows that a balance of linear and VOD is the key to your success.
Metadata is everything!
Any modern VOD platform hinges on one principal element: good content discovery.
Metadata has made this easily achievable. A complex system of structures that include thumbnail images, detailed descriptions, subgenres or even trailers, metadata makes content discoverability as easy as finding your favorite food in your refrigerator.
If your metadata is of great quality, it automatically increases the chances for the audience to discover content. An episode accompanied by a short summary is going to be far more discoverable and potentially engaging compared to one with no summary at all.
Looking to awe your audiences with a VOD offering like no other? Get the Amagi ON-DEMAND advantage.
Amagi On-DEMAND is a cloud-based VOD content, metadata transformation and delivery platform that extends Amagi’s CLOUDPORT media services platform on the cloud. It is a linearly scalable self-service orchestration platform combined with a powerful metadata transformation engine.
With Amagi ON-DEMAND you can:
- Plug and play connectors to 30+ OTT//MVPD/vMVPD platforms
- Ensure faster on-boarding and quickly expand your viewership
- Achieve secure and high-speed asset transfer to platforms
- Glean insights through an easy-to-use dashboard with access to all the VOD workflow metrics
- Quickly fix errors or issues through an automated reporting that offers access to health of asset ingest and delivery to platform
- Scale according to video delivery requirements on near real-time basis
Customer success story
One of our leading customers, delivering niche content to a loyal fan base, started their OTT journey with supplying their videos through social media channels, primarily YouTube. Slowly, they adopted the linear approach which massively helped them increase their reach and acceptance. As time went on and VOD took over, they realized it was time for more. Currently, they have a VOD platform and continue to provide linear content as well.
In simpler terms, they were primarily looking for:
- A broadcast-grade linear channel playout and VOD with rich graphics
- Distributing content through multiple OTT platforms
Amagi enabled the content partner to deliver both linear and VOD content to more than fifteen platforms and achieve their objectives through a SaaS-based engagement model, helping them expand into international markets.
Being able to balance linear and VOD well did the trick for them.
If you’re ready to take the VOD world by storm, we are ready to provide you the right, cloud-based, robust technology support you need. Reach out to us at cloudandme@amagi.com.
Do read our POV for more insights.
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