Survey: Do You AVOD, SVOD, or TVOD?

In the beginning there was streaming, but it was without form and it was void. At least void of monetization techniques.

A few years later, though—just like the internet itself a decade before, which moved from educational to business concerns—streaming had become commercialized. Long before concepts like over-the-top (OTT) video services or TV Everywhere became commonplace, the industry started trying various approaches to monetize content delivery, especially for video-on-demand (VOD) content.

Sponsorship-based VOD delivery was one of the initial approach to monetization, following the model of early television shows which were sponsored by particular brand names. Sponsors, though, were willing only to cover the cost of content production and basic delivery rather than pay a handsome profit that content producers dreamed of pulling in.

As online audiences grew, though, the chance to add two new forms of revenues—advertising and subscription—came into play.

Along with those revenue options came a new set of terms: ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD). Along with the terms emerged a fierce debate over which of the two options was the most likely to yield revenues without annoying consumers.

The debate continues, and we at Streaming Media would like your help in determining what the future holds for AVOD or SVOD approaches to monetization. We’d like both your opinion and insight in to your future plans for OTT monetization, along with insights into newer pay-per-view (PPV) and transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) approaches that are beginning to reach critical mass in emerging markets.

As part of a 36-question survey, which runs through August 18, 2016, we are asking the streaming industry to hep us assess the challenges and opportunities of AVOD and SVOD as the best way to turn a profit while coping with increasing OTT demand.

We’re not stating that sponsored content is dead, nor are we taking sides in this decades-old debate between advertising and subscriptions. In fact, the debate around the office is often whether there’s a better way, perhaps a hybrid of the two.

To date we’ve not seen a hybrid approach that works: some companies like Hulu have tried to do both, offering a subscription with “limited” commercials, but that just seems to be a way to double-dip (or doubly annoy the consumer).

But that’s just our opinion, and that’s why we’re asking streaming media professionals to weigh in on this evergreen topic. Taking the survey allows you make a valuable contribution to this debate by sharing your experiences in successfully navigating the challenging shoals of TV Everywhere before striking out towards AVOD, SVOD, or even TVOD.

As our way of saying thank you for sharing your valuable insights, Streaming Media offers any respondent that completes the survey an option to provide an email address to register to win an iPad Pro.

We look forward to your insights. In return, our team will analyze and report out the findings, sharing the results through our sister organization, Unisphere Research, in the form of a multipage report.