Verizon: The Two Major Things Netflix Got Right in Online Video
Netflix isn't just leading the way with subscribers, it's also giving the streaming industry a path to follow. At the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, a pay TV discussion quickly turned to the SVOD leader.
"They've done an amazing job," admitted Tricia Lynch, director of content strategy and acquisition for Verizon. "I have the greatest admiration for them, and one of the most important things they've done is show to us who are getting a little bit lazy that the importance of multiscreen is huge and access points. I think that their starting point, like many new channels in the space -- library films, and then library TV shows, and then original programming. So, it's a trajectory we've seen with Bravo or any number of basic and premium channels."
Verizon has taken lessons to heart from Netflix's success:
"Their two critical important contributions -- or things that we continue to watch and are challenged by -- is they make huge strides in search," Lynch said. "One of them was inspired by they actually were library films, so how to make this service look the best to everyone looking at it, to look different to you than it does to me. To make me think, 'Oh yeah, that 1980s Disney movie was awesome. I need to watch that.' Brilliant. Secondly, the fact that they made it really easy to access on all kinds of platforms."
For more on how content owners can improve their multiscreen performance, watch the full discussion below.
Making the Move to Multiscreen 2.0
Players in the Pay TV industry have the advantage of already being in the living room with access to consumers’ unprecedented appetite for content. Initially, their challenge had been to meet that demand by taking the first step towards a multiscreen deployment. But as consumer appetite for cross-screen access to content continues to grow, it’s time to move beyond the status quo and ramp things up to Multiscreen 2.0 - to provide viewers with complete, cross-platform content offerings. This session will discuss the biggest hurdles content owners and service providers face when scaling a multiscreen strategy. Learn how in the ever-evolving, fragmented Pay TV world, content owners can upgrade their multiscreen offerings to Version 2.0.
Moderator: J.R. Cottingham, Director, Product Management, Clearleap
Speaker: Tricia Lynch, Director of Content Strategy & Acquisition, Verizon
Speaker: Richard Shirley, VP, Distribution Business Development and Product Operations, A+E Networks
Speaker: Gabriel Sauerhoff, VP, Digital Media Distribution, Discovery Communications
Speaker: David Ludder, VP, Technology, iN DEMAND
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