The Top Five Challenges When Migrating OTT Platforms: What You Need to Know
As the OTT market matures, we’re hearing from more and more video streaming services who are looking to switch technology platforms. In some cases, they want more features than their current provider can offer: capabilities like personalization, big screen apps, support for hybrid revenue streams, and improved platform autoscaling to deal with peaks of user demand. In other cases, they’re looking for the efficiency and savings in terms of costs and development time that come with moving to an end-to-end OTT platform from a home-grown solution or a combination of multiple vendors.
Whatever your reason for considering a migration away from an existing OTT platform, it’s not a decision any service takes lightly. Like moving home, fear of the complications and challenges involved in a migration can lead streaming services to put off making a change until their current home becomes absolutely intolerable. But while moving providers can be challenging, it doesn’t have to be stressful. It’s a process we’ve guided a number of our customers through. In this blog, I’ll highlight some of the key considerations that you should take into account before embarking on a migration.
1. Migrating your video content to a new OTT platform
You’ve invested time and money in building a content library and optimising it to engage your audience. You’ll need to efficiently move video assets, associated images and metadata into your new OTT platform. Don’t forget this includes rights and availability information for each asset and any editorially-generated data such as thematic collections.
If you still have the source video files, you can ingest these directly into your new platform for re-transcode and wrapping with fresh DRM. There may be costs involved, but it can be worth it to get the correct video renditions for all the consumer devices you’ll now be targeting. For example, it’s much better to go back to the high-resolution source and create better-quality assets for new big-screen apps.
If you can’t access the original source content, or you’ve already created multi-bitrate files in all the sizes you need, it’s possible for your new platform provider to exchange encryption keys with your existing platform and re-use your current files. However, this requires timely cooperation from your outgoing vendor, which cannot always be guaranteed.
As well as migrating content, you’ll want to think about when to stop ingesting new assets into the old platform. It’s common to run both systems in parallel for a short time to ensure a smooth transition, but this is likely to create extra work for your editorial team, so it’s important to minimise the dual-running period where possible.
2. Transitioning subscription plans from an existing OTT platform
In addition to the content itself, you’ll need to go through a mapping process to make sure the subscription plans your customers enjoy today are still available when you’ve moved to your new technology platform. Keep naming and content selection exactly the same to avoid confusing customers during the transition and damaging your brand reputation.
If one of the reasons you’re migrating is to take advantage of new business models such as AVOD or TVOD alongside your subscription packages, it’s important to think carefully about how these will co-exist. You will also want to plan how you will communicate the migration and the new offerings to existing customers.
If you’d like to know more about implementing hybrid business models in your OTT service, I’d recommend you read our new e-guide: The Essentials of OTT Monetization our our advanced white paper, The Profit Playbook: Proven OTT Revenue Growth Tactics.
3. Moving users to a new OTT platform without creating friction and driving churn
One of the areas that most concerns OTT services is the friction that will be created for users in any platform switch. It’s sensible to consider the potential for churn and that’s why we suggest doing everything to avoid making customers re-register. One option is to migrate all their data, including passwords. This is the most seamless approach for users but there are security implications. Another option is to migrate all the other data, but ask them to create a new password at their first login via the new platform.
As well as granting access, user accounts must also be transitioned with all the relevant entitlements under their existing subscriptions. Making sure they’re mapped accurately is essential to avoiding customer complaints. Depending on the vendor of the OTT platform, the entitlements may be more or less tightly coupled to the individual video assets. This is something to consider carefully in parallel to the content migration questions we looked at earlier in this blog.
4. Preventing payment method errors in an OTT platform migration
The natural extension of concerns about migrating user accounts is the worry about friction around payment methods. It’s a particular problem for SVOD services that rely on stored card details to process monthly or annual subscription transactions. The more seamless the migration for the user, the less likely it is that consumers will simply not bother to take the steps required to maintain their subscription.
The process of migrating stored credit/debit card details will be easier if you’re using the same payment provider despite moving to a different streaming platform. But it can also be managed smoothly between different payment providers with sufficient notice and cooperation. Again, it’s worth looking at the advanced strategies outlined in our white paper, The Profit Playbook, especially the section on subscription dunning and win-back campaigns.
5. Seamlessly switching users to new versions of your streaming apps
While many OTT services switch platforms to unlock access via a wider range of consumer devices, including Smart TVs, it’s also important to consider how you migrate users from existing apps.
With Android apps hosted in Google Play or iOS apps via or Apple’s App Store, it’s a relatively simple process. Once the app versions from the new provider are ready to be published, they can be uploaded to the store with the same app ID as your existing apps, so the users get the new app whenever they next do a manual or auto app update. This generally requires minimal interaction with Apple or Google and little to no delay.
If you’ve got existing big screen apps, however, you’ll face a longer approval process. So, it’s important to start the dialogue with TV manufacturers like Samsung and LG as early as possible so you can work closely with them on managing the approvals and publication process. Working with an established big screen app developer is a good way to reduce the time involved in this transition.
For more on the process of developing, publishing, and maintaining big screen apps, download our whitepaper, Go Big Or Stay Small.
The path to progress – milestones for migrating your OTT service
So now we know the key challenges involved in migrating your OTT service. In an upcoming blog, we’ll look at how Magine Pro manages the milestones in a typical customer migration project to ensure the smoothest possible experience for viewers and content managers alike. Follow us on LinkedIn to be updated when the blog is published.
Want to know more?
If you’d like to talk to Magine Pro’s experts about migrating your OTT service away from your current vendor, why not book a meeting.
Introducing OAFF by Magine Pro
Introducing OAFF (Online African Film Festival), the world’s first online streaming service dedicated to African & Diaspora film.
In 2015, Cinewax set out to make African culture accessible through cinema by promoted African and diaspora films through original programming, premieres, and festivals. After launching the OAFF service and a successful round of crowdfunding, Cinewax partnered with us at Magine Pro to improve and expand the streaming service’s reach.
The OAFF was required to house their existing VOD movie library, champion the OAFF brand, and launch on web, iOS, and Android platforms. It was also required to be globally accessible, with the ability to be localised to suit international markets with multi-language, multi-currency, and geo-block capabilities.
Check out our case study to find out more about the OAFF service build and our partnership with Cinewax here. You can also download the OAFF service now on web and mobile devices.
Take a sneak peek at the new OAFF service…
If you want to find out more about Magine Pro solutions and services, get in touch! We can help you enhance your existing services and/or launch something entirely new. You can also check out our experience and more of our case studies here.
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Introducing Draken Film by Magine Pro
At Magine Pro we don’t just build OTT services for new businesses, we also work with existing OTT services that are looking to change their current platform provider. We pride ourselves in being able to improve services, tech and cost efficiency, without impacting the customer experience.
Earlier this year, we partnered with Göteborg Film Festival’s digital film service, Draken Film. Draken Film is home to more than 300 films from around the world with new movies released every week, alongside background material, interviews and inspiration. It’s simply a film festival all year round!
Draken Film sought our help to enhance their service, improve customer experience and provide better quality. Using Magine API’s we successfully integrated Draken Film’s existing web-only streaming service onto the Magine Pro platform, without downtime affecting their users. We also worked with them to build and launch new iOS and Android apps, enabling their subscribers to sign in and enjoy Draken Film on mobile devices.
Check out the case study to find out more about our partnership with Draken Film here.
Take a sneak peek at the new Draken Film app…
If you’re looking to change your OTT platform provider and want to find out more about Magine Pro solutions and services get in touch! We can help you enhance your existing services and/or launch something entirely new. You can take a closer look at our global OTT solutions and services here and check out our references.
5 reasons to outsource your OTT technology, not build it yourself
Digital TV Europe’s 2018 annual survey found that 84.9% of respondents would choose to outsource all or parts of their OTT build and management to a platform provider.
If you’re thinking of building an OTT service but you’re still on the fence about whether to do so in-house or outsource, we can help! We’ve outlined five reasons we believe outsourcing to be the best option for both big and small new market entrants.
QUICK RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Building an OTT service in-house requires considerable up-front investment. Implementing technical infrastructure and hiring experienced teams, that are capable of building and managing an OTT platform, will burden even the healthiest balance sheet. The setup costs alone represent a good chunk of capital that could be better used for content production and marketing. And even after launch, it will take some time to build a subscriber base, so it’s unlikely you’ll see a return on your investment for a good few months.
Outsourcing the build to a proven OTT platform provider, like Magine Pro, is the most cost-efficient way to create a video streaming service. Providers like us already have the tech and professional teams in place to help you build and launch your OTT business for a more manageable fixed or flexible fee. You’re certain to see a much quicker return on investment.
SPEED TO MARKET
Setting up an OTT service from scratch isn’t just costly, it’s also time intensive. It can weeks or even months to put the tech in place and build your teams, and that’s before you’ve finalised content rights or planned a launch strategy.
Speed to market should be a priority, especially if you need to start recouping some of the initial in-house investment costs. Rushing to launch a new service, however, means you risk releasing a sub-par service that’s not been effectively tried or tested. And although subscribers will sign up, they may not return.
Outsourcing to an experienced service provider relieves a lot of the time pressure. With their existing tech and support, you’re guaranteed a much quicker time to market, enabling you to focus your time and capital on launch and marketing efforts.
REGULAR DEVELOPMENT & INNOVATION
The cost of running and maintaining an in-house service can be high, particularly as your subscriber numbers will take a while to elevate after launch. And over time you’ll also need to invest more capital to cover development costs. That means leaving enough in the kitty for necessary service changes, updates or new features based on your user feedback and behaviour.
Outsourcing your OTT service build to an experienced provider means this is all taken care of as part of a fixed setup fee. You’re also guaranteed a tried and tested service that’s market proven.
PROFESSIONAL CUSTOMER & SERVICE SUPPORT
It requires experienced teams to build and maintain an OTT service as well as trained customer support agents to keep your subscribers happy and engaged. Good customer care, in particular, is essential as it builds trust and loyalty, which ultimately reduces churn and can even encourage customers to make additional purchases, such as package upgrades, later on.
As a full end-to-end OTT service provider, Magine Pro offers more than just the tech. We give our partners all the support they need to set up and maintain a great service, including guidance on marketing, sales, and customer care.
PROVEN EXPERIENCE
An experienced team will help you build a strong in-house product alongside give you a greater understanding of the industry and market. And as your service expands, your team will also need to. Building a team of engineers, marketing professionals and customer service agents come at a cost, whether you do so in-house or outsource to multiple service providers.
One experience provider who offers a full end-to-end service will already have the teams in place. Magine Pro, for example, has over six years experience operating direct-to-consumer businesses in Scandinavia and Germany. Because of this, we have close relations and a deep understanding of the content industry and consumers. We also use data generated by our analytics platform to ensure the continuous and rapid development of all our partner’s services based on our in-market consumer services.
You can find out more about Magine Pro’s global OTT platforms and services here and read more of our references. To get updates on our latest news, products, and blog posts, sign up for our monthly e-newsletter.
Introducing True Royalty by Magine Pro
Last week we launched True Royalty, our latest partner service. True Royalty is the world’s first on-demand streaming service devoted to premium royal content. It features documentaries, specials and factual dramas about royals around the world and through the ages – from the British monarchy to the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
True Royalty is co-founded and curated by Nick Bullen, one of the best-known producers of programs about the British monarchy, including the BAFTA-winning programme The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration and more recently, Meghan Markle: An American Princess. True Royalty also features rarely-seen home movie footage of royals as well as candid interviews and programme exclusives which have never before been shown outside their original broadcast territory.
The service was built to be independently managed and curated by the True Royalty team. Using the Magine Pro Console, True Royalty can ingest new VOD content and live edit the service’s start page, content categories, video asset’s artwork and metadata. The Console also gives them full control of their user accounts, payments, and subscription packages.
The branded SVOD service is based on Magine Pro’s templated Premium solution and includes additional features from our X range. As a Premium X service, we enabled True Royalty to launch with a seven day free trial period and monthly or yearly subscription packages. We also continue to manage their 1st line customer support and give True Royalty direct access to Magine Pro’s platform service database, enabling them to create and produce their own deep data reports and analytics. To find out more about how Magine Pro built and launched True Royalty, check out our case study.
Here’s a sneak peek of the True Royalty service
Viewers can sign up to True Royalty today and start streaming on the web and mobile devices, including tablets and phones that support iOS and Android applications. The service is currently available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Find out more about Magine Pro OTT solutions here and get in touch if you would like to find out how we can help you get your own OTT business off the ground!
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Read more about the True Royalty launch:
Vanity Fair
The Guardian
Telegraph
Variety
Daily Mail
Metro
Customize and Curate your own OTT Service
Content drives users to sign up to video streaming services and more importantly, encourages them to come back and continue paying subscription charges every month. Consistently adding new and engaging content to your service is necessary but you can also change the way existing content is displayed to refresh your service and entice users to watch content they haven’t yet seen. In fact, Netflix frequently changes their asset’s artwork. They estimate you have less than 90 seconds to capture a users attention before they move on to another task and artwork has the biggest influence on what people choose to watch.
We provide our partners with the tools to do the same. Our comprehensive web-based management system, the Magine Pro Console enables them to independently curate and manage their own Magine Pro services. Partners can ingest VOD directly into their service via the Console and assemble content into series and category collections. It’s also possible to curate the service’s start page with featured content and frequently change artwork with immediate effect.
That’s not all; we also understand how important metadata is to discovery. Using the Console our partners can add and edit their asset’s metadata, including summaries, directors, and cast. This not only helps users discover great content in the service but also aids discovery of the service and content on the web through search engine optimization.
Our Magine Pro Premium partners, who sell direct to the consumer, can also manage their user accounts, payments, ads and subscription packages through the Console and get comprehensive insights into their user behavior, service usage, and operational analytics, enabling them to manage churn and make smart business decisions fast.
Sneak peek at the Magine Pro Console:
The Magine Pro Console is designed to give you full control and features everything you need to set up and run a successful OTT service. Find out more about the Magine Pro Console and see how it supports our Pioneer and Premium video services here. You can also request a demo today and discover how easy it is to curate and manage your own OTT service.
Magine TV takes the top spot as the best streaming provider in Germany
This week, Stiftung Warentest, a trusted German consumer organization that investigates and compares good and services, announced our consumer service, Magine TV, emerged victorious in a comparison of live TV streaming services in Germany. The comparison evaluated Magine TV, Zattoo, Waipu, TV Spielfilm Live, and Coufunk as well as the free online offerings from German broadcasters ARD and ZDF on factors like price-performance ratio, availability of stations, ease of use, picture and sound quality as well as data privacy. After testing, Stiftung Warentest concluded Magine TV to be the best provider of live TV streaming services in Germany for both free and pay TV streaming.
Magine TV was actually founded at our HQ in Sweden in 2012. In 2015, we expanded into the German market with Magine TV Deutschland. Magine TV Deutschland offers the same great service with free and pay TV packages that don’t tie users into long-term binding contracts. In fact, our commitment to provide users with great content was also mentioned in the Stiftung Warentest report, as Magine TV was the only provider in the test to offer stations from German broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 and the RTL Group.
We continue to run our consumer services, Magine TV and Plejmo, to this day. We’ve even expanded our operations in recent years. Leveraging our technology, platform, and experience we launched Magine Pro, which provides cost-efficient and scalable live, linear TV and Video-On-Demand services for our B2B partners. Our templated OTT solutions offer the same user-friendly interface and experience as Magine TV (now powered by the Magine Pro platform) as the template was built based on our learnings. As a result, all Magine Pro partner solutions share in the success of Magine TV.
Take a closer look at the Magine TV service:
Although templated, all Magine Pro solutions are customisable. Our partners can add additional features and services and brand their platform with their own colour palettes and logos. We also provide all the tools and support they need to successfully launch, manage and grow their own OTT business.
You can find out more about Magine Pro’s OTT platforms and services here and check out our references. Get in touch if you would like to hear more about Magine TV’s recent recognition.
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Introducing FlixOlé, the home of Spanish Cinema by Magine Pro
Last year we partnered with Dinamedia, one of the world’s largest Spanish movie libraries, to build and launch their global SVOD service, FlixOlé. FlixOlé is available to audiences around the world and is home to thousands of Spanish and international film titles, including current and old classics that have been restored and digitized. We launched their Samsung Tizen app within two weeks, followed shortly after by the FlixOlé web service, iOS, and Android apps.
In preparation for launch, FlixOlé put a solid subscriber acquisition strategy in place. Alongside marketing and digital activities, FlixOlé formed a partnership with Spanish bank CaixaBank. Customers who signed up for loans received a Smart TV and FlixOlé subscription at a discounted rate. Subscriber acquisition strategies like this are fantastic for new OTT service entrants, in fact, more than 50% of FlixOlé’s initial subscriber base was a result of this partnership and the service continues to grow.
Earlier this month, Orange Spain also announced it was also adding FlixOlé to its Orange TV offer with a first-month-free trial for all new subscribers.
Head over to the home of Spanish cinema, FlixOlé now to sign up to the service directly and start watching fantastic films. You can also check out our case study to learn more about our partnership, Magine Pro tech and the build process.
Take a sneak peek at the FlixOlé film service powered by Magine Pro:
At Magine Pro, we enable our partners to hit the ground running with a branded OTT service that’s secure and scalable. Our Premium product enables our partners to launch in global markets and monetize their content with an off-the-shelf OTT service on web and native iOS and Android apps. We also provide Apple TV, Android TV and Smart TV apps for the big screen through our Premium X offering, alongside marketing and growth support to help our partners build their subscriber base.
You can find out more about Magine Pro’s global OTT platforms and services here and read more of our references. To get updates on our latest news, products, and blog posts, sign up for our monthly e-newsletter.
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Read more about FlixOlé in the press:
OTT Players: Go big screen, or go home?
For an OTT video service, being on every platform and device that your subscriber might have is considered standard in the media and OTT industry. Big screen streaming through devices such as Smart TVs, Apple TV, Android TV and Roku is still perceived as the most important for viewers though, both as of today and in the next five years according to Digital TV Europe recent industry survey:
Being able to reach your viewers on any thinkable device as an OTT service makes perfect sense, right? No, not necessarily so.
Having your service available on any device is, of course, a great value proposition and expands the customer experience but there are downsides. For every new device added, there is also added complexity and cost in maintenance, customer support, and subscriber communication.
The importance put on being present on every imaginable device is also based on faulty assumptions. When it comes to OTT streaming, all devices and screens are not created equal. Our internal data shows that 70-80% of streaming takes place through web clients, smartphones, and tablets. Set-top boxes and dongles for big-screen viewing, such as Apple TV and Android TV, actually only account for between 2-3% of streaming, which means the cost of launching and maintaining an app for those devices is often higher than the revenue generated through subscriptions tied to them. Keeping the features and quality of service on those apps up to par with the most heavily used mobile devices may also prove challenging, resulting in viewer frustration and lessening of the customer experience. There is, of course, the marketing value of being on major platforms and devices, even if the viewers choose to consume the service on other devices, but this should always be a well-thought-through decision.
Rather than immediately going for the ‘be on every device’ strategy, consider what the expectations are for the chosen devices and how they fit into your commercial strategy and acquisition plan. The risk otherwise, as we have seen from experience, is that preparations are made to launch a service on six or more devices, only to realise that three of the devices account for +80% of the streaming and subscriptions, which means the remaining devices are almost pure cost-only drivers. For some markets though, there are ‘must-be-on’ devices that shouldn’t be overlooked. In the German market, for example, Amazon Fire accounts for 40% of streaming for our partners and should be on the priority list of anyone looking to launch a service in the German market.
Start small screen, grow big screen
We recommend all new OTT service entrants focus on web, iOS, and Android in the first phase. These devices are often where the bulk of the subscriber acquisition and uptake take place, so the viability of the business can easily be tested and evaluated. Netflix for example, had 82 % of their year-on-year growth for 2016 and 2017 driven by increased access via smartphones.
This same trend was highlighted recently in a report by Ooyala, which showed that mobile video plays could soon reach a 70% market share, and that smartphone viewing is three times that of tablets. Even more so for emerging markets, where smartphones are more common and accessible than tablets and big screen devices. In the same study, mobile video dominated in EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, Africa) market with the level of engagement at 63.5%.
At Magine Pro, we enable our partners to hit the ground running. Our Premium product offers clients an off-the-shelf OTT service with web and native iOS and Android apps. For those already decided that big screen devices are critical for launch, or looking to expand the number of devices that the Magine Pro Premium product offers, we also provide Apple TV, Android TV and Smart TV apps for the big screen, which are available as add-ons through our Premium X offering. We’re able to accommodate any OTT service wherever they may be in their growth journey.
You can find out more about our OTT platforms and services here. To get updates on latest news, products, and blog posts, sign up for our monthly e-newsletter.