The Pay-TV/OTT partnership simplifies offerings for consumers and removes viewing experience annoyances such as the need for multiple remotes, multiple connections to the TV, and separate subscriptions (and bills) to consume desired content. Partnerships between service providers and OTT players keep the modern-day, multi-device, hybrid viewer happy – and provide a larger breadth of offerings. “Netflix-exclusive” content is available to cable and satellite subscribers – and partnering with cable giants eliminates the risk of long-term Netflix-only consumers cancelling their subscriptions due to recent price increases.

The benefits of these types of partnerships translates to more consumer choice and more one-stop-shop opportunities for viewers to enjoy their desired content on their preferred channel of choice. TiVo was one of the first to partner with Netflix – along with a slew of European Pay-TV providers – and is definitely not the last. In fact, Comcast just announced it is incorporating Netflix into its set-top box – delivering seamless access to the content offered by both companies through its X1 offering.

Looking to the future:

The evolution of the media landscape in the short, medium, and long term continues to accelerate.

Looking forward, the shift includes more short-form content. Today’s evolved digital consumer has far less of an appetite for long form content – as a result, we have seen a resurgence of the half hour program and even shorter “YouTube-like” content. Content presented by traditional broadcasters and new content providers has already started to cater to these consumer trends as any long-term viewer of news programming channels have seen firsthand.

In the long term, traditional Pay-TV will still deliver content, but its primary business will not be boxes, satellite dishes, packages, and on-network delivery. Rather, Pay-TV will shift to media and become an aggregation tool for subscribers to consume content from a vast range of creators and via delivery models not yet even conceived.

But for now, and for the next five years, the “better together” mindset and model is here to stay.

Conclusion:

Although Pay-TV and OTT have been positioned against each other throughout the digital era, customer demands for a simple, seamless, all-access viewing experience has not only resulted in a truce of sorts – but a quasi-co-opetition partnership – between the former foes. Forward-thinking providers recognize the business, revenue, and customer experience advantages that coincide with joining forces – which for most providers far outweigh the consequences of fighting yesterday’s battle.