Rethink TV

Pay TV and Broadband place their last chips on understanding the customer

Rethink Technology Research finds that Customer Journey Management offerings will save operators over $10.5 billion in churning revenues over the forecast period

With a rocky road ahead for their core offerings, triple play operators are having to weaponize customer care in order to keep a hold on their revenues. Traditional OSS/BSS offerings are not up to the job, which has given rise to a new breed of vendors, focused on improving QoS and customer experiences with household-level analytics.

Rethink TV has grouped these vendors under a new umbrella term, ‘Customer Journey Management’ (CJM), and forecasts that this market will grow to $24.6 billion by 2026 – across the Broadband and Pay TV segments. Through the forecast period, this will save operators $10.5 billion in churning revenues, as high-level, granular analytics allow operators to improve their QoS at a household level.

Companies mentioned in this report:

3SS, Accenture, AirTies, Alcatel-Lucent, Amazon, Amdocs, ASSIA, Bitmovin, Cerillion, Ciena, Cisco, Comarch, Comcast, Conviva, CSG International, Don River,
Ericsson, ETI, Facebook, Google, Hitron, HPE, Huawei, IBM, IMImobile, Infosys, Intec, Intraway, Kustomer, MarketONE, MediaKind, Microsoft, NetCracker, Netezza, Nice People at Work, Nokia, Oracle, Plume, Rakuten, Reliance Jio, Salesforce, SoftAtHome, SpaceX, Sweepr, Tech Mahindra, Telcordia, UXP Systems, Veego, Vendicia.

Need more information?

Roz Hilton (Business Development Director, Video Technologies)

[email protected]

+ 44 (0)1962 732886

Pure WebRTC services emerge to take share from Private CDN vendors, as total CDN market hits $33 billion by 2025

Rethink Technology Research finds that Multi-CDN accounts for 72% of Total CDN by 2025, as developing regions with worse Public CDN options surpass North America and Europe.

As the percentage of global internet traffic that is video creeps up from 69.4% to 75.8%, between 2020 and 2025, Multi-CDN deployments will graduate from commonplace to essential. The Multi-CDN market will grow to $24 billion, as more video services begin using multiple CDN suppliers, to ensure better resilience and quality of service, and to negotiate lower prices from CDN suppliers.

Amid this battle between Public CDN and Private CDN options, we also expect the emergence of Pure WebRTC distribution services, as an alternative to CDNs. Predominantly targeting live video, and driven by the emergence of the SRT, RIST, and CMAF protocols, these Pure WebRTC services are projected to grow from around 1.2% to 8.3% of total Multi-CDN traffic – as streaming video services turn to cheaper alternatives to CDNs.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Akamai, Alibaba, Amazon CloudFront, Anevia, Broadpeak, CDNnow, CDNvideo, CenturyLink
(Lumen), CloudFlare, Concurrent, Conversant Solutions, Edgemesh, Edgeware, Eluv.io, Fastly, G-CoreLabs, Google, Globecast, Haivision, LimeLight Networks, Livepeer, MediaKind, Microsoft, Nanocosmos, Net Insight, OctoShape, Peer5, PeerCDN, Qumu, Red5 Pro, StreamRoot, Strivecast, Synamedia, Teltoo, Vecima, Velocix, Verizon EdgeCast, Viblast, Vidgo, Wowza, Zixi

Need more information?

Roz Hilton (Business Development Director, Video Technologies)

[email protected]

+ 44 (0)1962 732886

Rethink Technology Research finds that long-form video from outside the traditional pay TV ecosystem will grow aggressively, as new generation of viewers strays farther from reach

Our latest Rethink TV forecast demonstrates the slow decline of pay TV, and the rise of the OTT market – both SVoD, and this new sector. So while the growth in SVoD that stems from the conventional TV and movie industry does more than offset the losses we see in pay TV line, what Rethink TV wanted to do was quantify ‘the other’ – long-form video content that does not originate from TV and film studios, that isn’t delivered over pay TV infrastructure, and that is often available freely to viewers.

Defining this sector has been difficult, but we chose to focus on three constituent parts – Long Form online video, Social Media video, and Gaming video. Collectively, for the purposes of this forecast, we’ll refer to them as LSG.

Our research shows how LSG grows faster than SVoD, and is on track to close the gap with pay TV within a couple of decades. That event could be the end of pay TV as we know it and of course sports rights, as they de-couple from pay TV could have a huge part to play in that, and we have already published a forecast on those.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Amazon, AT&T, Comcast, Crunchyroll, Dailymotion, Disney, Facebook, Google, HBO, iQIYI, Le.com, Microsoft, MX Player, Netflix, Peacock, Snapchat, Tencent Video, TikTok, Tune.pk, Twitter, Viki, Vimeo, Viu, Voot, Youku, YouTube

Need more information?

Roz Hilton (Business Development Director, Video Technologies)

[email protected]

+ 44 (0)1962 732886

Rethink Technology Research finds that COVID-19 lockdowns provide an 8.7% immediate lift to the SVoD market, which reaches $72.3 billion and 775.8 million subscribers in 2025

The global Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) market is projected to be positively impacted by the COVID-19 lockdowns, as consumers turn to SVoD services to fill increased viewing hours and restrictions on movie theater attendance. Disney’s arrival on the global streaming stage could not have come at a more opportune time, and it is projected to soon pass Amazon’s Prime Video viewership, and close the gap on first-place Netflix towards the end of 2025.

The collective streaming providers are the nail in the coffin for traditional pay TV approaches, and it is hard to see how viewers with two or more SVoD services can ever return to the conventional pay TV model. The three streaming providers have had the biggest opportunity to rip market share from the pay TV market handed to them on a plate, and their projected success here means that they will fundamentally alter the viewing habits of hundreds of millions of households

Combined, this is a market that reaches 775.8 million global subscribers, worth $72.3 billion in 2025. That growth comes at the expense of traditional pay TV services, and the uplift expected from the COVID-19 lockdowns will have long-lasting affects. Once kids are locked into an SVoD library, and Disney’s does look particularly enticing, parents are going to be quite reluctant to cancel that service, and when the prices are this low, the SVoD services become very sticky offerings. When measured against our historic projections, we believe that the lockdowns will result in an 8.7% increase in subscriptions, and a 7.9% increase in revenue, in 2020.

Companies mentioned in this report:

AT&T, HBO, Comcast, Sky, Disney, Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon.

How to survive the Set Top Box endgame; Android TV to dominate set tops, trade war shuts door on China

After a decade of predictions that the set top was on its last legs, the endgame is in sight – but far from dying overnight, over the next five years what operators seem to be planning is a dramatic reduction in the list of video operating systems. This is all spelled out in a new report from Rethink Technology Research entitled “How to survive the Set Top Box endgame.”

Android TV, RDK and a handful of other specialist smart TV OSs will come to the fore, mostly at the expense of generic Linux variants, plus a new entry out of China as the US China trade war eliminates what would have been dominance there on Android in favor of Huawei’s Harmony, which will eventually make the transition from Smart TV OS, to full bloodied set tops.

On pure set tops globally Android will reign supreme and make huge gains in Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America. Although Android will score in North America, it will be held at bay by the resolute rock of RDK, increasingly dominant in the cable sector.

We believe that Android TV will surge to the top of the leaderboard with 24% of global pay TV subscriptions. In North America Android will meet stiff resistance from RDK and meanwhile Huawei’s HarmonyOS will become a major force in China, initially on smart TVs, and then later on set tops.

Companies mentioned in this report

Altice, Amazon, America Movil, Android, Apple, Arris, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Bourges Telecom, BT, Canal+, Calbevision, Charter, CBS, CenturyLink, Comcast, CommScope, Cox, Cyfrowy Polsat, DAZN, Deutsche Telekom, Dish D2H, Disney+, ER Telecom, ESPN, Fox, Google, Grupo Televisa, HBO, Huawei, Humax, Iliad, KDDI, Korea Telecom, LG, LG Uplus, Liberty Global, Linux Foundation, MEASAT, Multichoice, Netflix, NTT Docomo, Orange, Peacock, Pluto TV, Reliance Jio, Rogers, Roku, Rostelecom, Samsung, Shaw, SoftAtHome, Sun Direct, Tata Sky, Telecom Argentina, Telefonica, Time Warner, TiVo, Tricolor, Tubi TV, UPC, Verizon, Viacom, Vodafone, VTR