With the streaming sector becoming ever more saturated, Ian Waters, senior director, Cisco ThousandEyes, takes a look at what SVoD and BVoD operators need to do in order to both survive and thrive
By Contributor
Published: January 13, 2022
With the streaming sector becoming ever more saturated, Ian Waters, senior director, Cisco ThousandEyes, takes a look at what SVoD and BVoD operators need to do in order to both survive and thrive
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin>
Streaming services from both digital natives and traditional broadcasters have now become part and parcel of many households' entertainment. In fact, according to Ofcom, UK subscriptions to streaming video on demand (SVoD) services rose by half last year, to reach a new record number of 31 million UK consumers.
Streaming's growing popularity creates both an opportunity and a challenge for broadcasters and content owners. Firstly, the content market - and therefore the audience that consumes that content - is now more fragmented than ever. The competition is not just found in the market leaders but in other digital arenas like gaming and social media.
What's more, new generations of consumers are unforgiving when it comes to bad streaming experiences. One bad experience, and they will take their viewership elsewhere and not return.
To sustain and grow their audience share and reach, streaming providers need to focus on the way that content is delivered to viewers and the quality of the end-to-end service. This quality is now a key differentiator.
An internet-enabled evolution UK consumers now have hundreds of local and global streaming services from both SVoD and broadcast video on demand (BVoD) operators to choose from that's a lot of competition for viewers' time and attention. Naturally, there are questions around how many services a market can handle. As a result, these providers must stay relevant and connected with audiences to be successful.
But first, it's important to consider the evolution of the TV market. Rewind a decade ago and linear TV services dominated the broadcast world. The operators of these services ran the entire end-to-end delivery and network infrastructure. These broadcasters were under a lot of pressure to maintain high uptime. If ever the box went black, it would cost them thousands in lost advertising revenue.
The internet re-wrote the broadcast playbook. Whilst the pressures of delivering an always-on service still remain, it has significantly lowered cost barriers to entry and has signalled a new area of new Internet-powered services and devices. Video content now needs to be delivered reliably where the audience is, across mobile and fixed-line networks.
As a result, this new era of content delivery requires partnerships with carrier service providers, content delivery networks (CDNs), digital monitoring and security service providers to manage the content delivery and viewing experience not only now but in the future. Streaming providers must provision network capacity and bandwidth for all possible viewing scenarios.
However, this also means these organisations are dealing with increasingly complicated IT ecosystems, often stitching together a range of technology services and connectivity they do not own to reach their intended audience. And even though they have far less control over the end-to-end delivery mechanism, they are still ultimately held responsible by consumers for how it performs. So, how can they find new ways of making content delivery more reliable?
Critical visibility and collaboration Firstly, holistic visibility of all the elements and providers that make up this end-to-end content delivery mechanism is crucial. This kind of visibility provides actionable insights into the performance and availability of these networks that are responsible for delivering a good user experience. Should any part of the chain be it application, internet or cloud suffer an outage, SVoD and BVoD organisations can quickly identify and remediate dreaded downtime. And it's only a matter of when, unfortunately. You don't need to look far back in time to find an example. In December, Amazon Web Services experienced a major outage that took down major streaming services like Disney Plus and Netflix.
Secondly, these organisations can't go it alone. Despite the aforementioned lack of control, they do need to partner with a range of technology and carrier service providers to ensure they remain competitive and online for their users. The outages of 2021 served as a clear reminder that the internet can tumble. Streaming providers should consider diversifying their delivery services to provide brand reputation. If any of their providers experience a disruption in services, they can route around it or communicate the issue quickly to customers.
Further to this, in a world where it's no longer good enough just to launch a streaming service and the size of catalogue is not always a barometer for success, they need to understand their customers' preferences and behaviours to develop a unique, seamless platform, while also monetising their content through intelligent data gathering.
Increasingly, it is those partnerships that will result in differentiated viewing experiences that keep viewing audiences engaged.
A brave new streaming world So, what's next for streaming? Already, we're seeing agreements with as-a-service application providers and carrier service providers to apply quality-of-service (QoS) prioritisation to their specific application traffic, improving the performance of those services for a nominal monthly fee. We are likely to see similar arrangements develop over time, with partnerships being established between internet providers or backbone networks to ensure that streaming traf
Europe Stories
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
07/07/2026
Applications are now open for the Validation Booster, a six-month acceleration programme supporting journalists, media organisations, content creators, media in...
07/07/2026
New mixer aimed squarely at instrument-level sources
Heritage Audio have clearly been busy recently, as alongside their all-new Tubestrip, they've also ...
07/07/2026
New channel strip combines popular hardware designs
The latest arrival to the Heritage Audio line-up brings together a selection of their praised hardware d...
07/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
07/07/2026
UKTV commission with BritBox and Sony Pictures Television and inspired by Deborah Cadbury's book, Chocolate Wars
The six-part series is produced by Fable P...
07/07/2026
Tuesday 7 July 2026
Record audiences tune into the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 on Sky Sports
The ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 was the most watche...
07/07/2026
Tuesday 7 July 2026
Official trailer released for Fightland, a revenge drama fr...
07/07/2026
Wuppertal July 7, 2026
Riedel and ARRI Bring Cinematic Live Production to the Eurovision Song ContestRiedel Communications and ARRI played a key role in one o...
07/07/2026
To Whom It Concerns RT today confirmed that Patrick Kielty is to extend his contract as host of The Late Late Show.
Last season, the world's longest-runn...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky Kids unveils new slate for 2026 including Paris Hilton&#...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
** MEDIA ALERT **
BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR THE CALAMITY Continues I...
04/07/2026
** MEDIA ALERT **
VIZ Media Unveils New Anime Slate at Anime Expo 2026 with ...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
** MEDIA ALERT **
VIZ Media Celebrates Anime Expo 2026 with BLACK TORCH Worl...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Thursday 2 July 2026
Tea with Judi Dench returns to Sky Arts with legendary guest, Sir Ian McKellen
Sky today confirms Tea with Judi Dench will return this su...
01/07/2026
New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more
Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...
01/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
01/07/2026
Exclusive run of limited-edition modelling pedals
Sweetwater and Andertons M...
01/07/2026
Our SD10T was an absolutely rock-solid, stable console and the Quantum 338T has been the perfect upgrade, Hurley says. Having multiple screens is a big advant...
01/07/2026
LEXINGTON, Kentucky - July 2026 -Tyler Childers' seventh and latest studio record, Snipe Hunter, is an adventurously sprawling collection of tunes that span...
01/07/2026
** MEDIA ALERT **
BLEACH Comes to Life in Los Angeles with First-of-Its-Kind...
01/07/2026
UKTV has today announced the appointment of Matt Berry to the newly created role of General Manager - Marketing, effective 1 July.
Matt will take on this senio...
01/07/2026
Sky Zero Footprint Fund-backed TV campaign featuring Deborah Meaden challenges consumers to rethink everyday bathroom wasteWednesday 1 July 2026
Fussy asks Bri...
01/07/2026
Constituency-level analysis reveals where girls miss out most on sport - and where targeted action could unlock more than £640 million in economic and health be...
01/07/2026
Wuppertal July 1, 2026
Riedel and SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive IntegrationRiedel Communications today announced an expanded collaboration wit...
01/07/2026
Apple today introduced power-packed updates to Apple Creator Studio, a groundbre...
01/07/2026
Nectar360, the Retail Media, Loyalty and Insights business of the Sainsburys Gro...
01/07/2026
9.2 million streams on RT Player between 11 and 28 June
Reach of 2.9 million viewers during Group stages of FIFA World Cup on RT 2
23 million video views acr...
With the streaming sector becoming ever more saturated, Ian Waters, senior director, Cisco ThousandEyes, takes a look at what SVoD and BVoD operators need to do in order to both survive and thrive
