Succeeding in Video by Enhancing the Viewing Experience
Todays hotly contested pay-TV market is getting increasingly aggressive. Multiple OTT services are competing to capture market share as the transition from traditional pay-TV services to internet-based services keeps accelerating. But these market dynamics are also creating an environment where regional US pay-TV service providers could enjoy a clear advantage.
This was the focus of the recent Light Reading webinar, Getting Personal: How Regional & Local Service Providers Can Succeed in Video by Enhancing the Viewing Experience. Moderated by Light Reading's Cable/Video practice leader, Alan Breznick, the webinar featured panelists John Warmath, CEO of 1Tennessee; Dustin Twyman CTO of 1Tennessee; Michael McLaughlin, CTO of IPVconnect; and Rohit Mehra, Sales VP of NAGRA. All participants shared their perspectives on consumer expectations, the profitability potential of pay-TV service, the benefits of switching to IPTV and how to select the right partner to achieve your objectives.
A market driven by consumer demand
Kicking off the conversation, Breznick queried the panelists on what consumers are seeking and expecting in a pay-TV service today.
McLaughlin weighed in on the challenge with his customer base, mainly consisting of private communities and MDU-type environments, looking for compelling reasons not to just think of IPVconnect as a broadband service provider but also as a provider of video services. Given the crowded video space, IPVconnect zoned in on providing a package of services that distinguishes them from competitors, featuring localization, custom channel options and PPV options.
People are looking for a more and more complex feature set, content aggregation, content discovery, and they want it in an intuitive, easy-to-use package, added Warmath.
Unique opportunities for local and regional providers
The key to all this is the matter of profitability. When asked if pay-TV services can still be profitable for local and regional providers, the panelists shared their perspectives.
You have three strategies, kill TV, let it die slowly, or invest to stop the attrition that everyone is seeing. This depends on the provider but, a substantial number of our customers want to do business locally. If we can provide a product and a service that lives up to their expectations, they're going to do business with us, especially when it comes to seeing local sports and news. It really comes down to providing that product that fits their expectations and moves seamlessly between services they're choosing are with the ability to use their own devices, stated Warmath.
Twyman added, Competitors such as Hulu or YouTube TV now cost $70-80 by themselves and don't give you all the content that we can provide the customer. And, with the box rental costs not associated with the new service on the CAPEX side, I think it is a more profitable situation. Traditionally, you would have spent all your money on the CAPEX side and keeping the headend going.
Reaping the many benefits of a compelling consumer offering
Along the way of implementing the new solution, the panelists uncovered surprising insights with both consumers and their own teams. These learnings shed light on how smaller service operators can create a compelling consumer offering with many benefits.
The television is not the only platform anymore. It has amazed us, particularly in the plus-55 community, how open and excited they are about being able to have different viewing options. When we first introduced this to our customers, we thought our take rate for devices such as Firesticks would be really focused on our younger tech' community. But what has been a shocker is that our plus-55 community is successfully using the Firesticks today, noted McLaughlin.
Twyman added, This product can be launched in less than 30 minutes for a whole house. And, you're giving the customer DVR services from their mobile device, their iPad; there are just so many different variations of what you're giving the customer that they would never get from a traditional system. Once customers experience it, they don't want to ever go backward. Additionally, 1Tennessee has experienced a pleasant surprise from a technician side of things as well. No one wants to go into a house and rewire five boxes that will go away in the future anyway.
Final words of advice from the experts
When asked how do you overcome the financial hurdles to make the transition to IPTV? The panelists each shared advice for operators considering the switch.
Do your research. Find a good solution provider that will work with you and help you fill some of the holes that you don't already have on your team, some that will be committed to making it happen, stated Warmath.
McLaughlin added, There are many legacy providers out there claiming to do IPTV. But when you look underneath the hood, it's basically an add-on to what they have been providing. Although there's a significant investment in this, at the end of the day, the return on our investment we feel is very reasonable. If you're looking at a smaller customer base, it amazing how affordable this is.
NAGRA plays an important role in helping operators transition to IPTV to serve consumers and customers better. We work with its partners to deliver a fully-featured hybrid streaming solution powered by the OpenTV Video Platform. The solution enables operators to optimize the customer experience against their local requirements. With a low-touch market entry proposition, this turn-key solution is designed to deliver the benefits of a tier-1 solution without the hefty price tag.
The webinar is accessible in its entirety to learn more from panelists on how your pay-TV business can benefit from this inn
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Succeeding in Video by Enhancing the Viewing Experience
