OTT Content Discovery: If a TV Show Falls in the Forest… 

CONTENT DISCOVERY by Bonnie Optekman

Here’s two recent developments in the OTT world.

1) Hulu announced it’s partnering with MVPDs to allow viewers to subscribe to Hulu Plus through the set top box. Listen to Brian Stelter’s interview of CEO Mike Hopkins as he talks about fishing “where the fish are” and viewing Hulu “as a channel.”

2) Apple TV reportedly wants to include local stations in its as yet unreleased new product offering, according to Joan E. Solsman in her CNET article on Apple.

These companies are essentially acknowledging that it shouldn’t be so complicated to watch television.

Let me back up.

Remember when manufacturers promised computers would get to be as easy as using appliances?  Farhad Manjoo wrote this great piece about it way back in 2010 mentioning Jef Raskin’s early efforts to simplify the PC.

Well, not only are we not there yet but now we’ve turned TVs into computers. They can deliver all this great new entertainment, news and sports. But it takes a lot more than turning them on to unearth the new treasures.

This is especially true since series can be broken up into more than one platform. There may be episodes on MVPD or brand TVE sites, others on Hulu, and older ones on Netflix depending on the windowing agreements.

So what needs improvement is content discovery which can mean at least three different things.

(And let’s take as a given that dividing content – I really don’t like that word - into TV vs movies doesn’t work anymore. It’s all one treasure trove ready to be, well, discovered.)

1. Recommendations based on prior behavior and friends’ viewing.

2. The digital equivalent of the reliable TV Guide Magazine.

There are good sites/apps to do this on desktop, tablet or phone such as TV Guide, Peel, BuddyTV, and Can I Stream It. Some include premium channels (e.g., HBO, Showtime) and subscription services (e.g., Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video) and if they don’t, they’re working on it. Some are working on turning the mobile device into a remote too.

For those willing to buy more hardware, TiVo does a great job delivering search results on the TV screen ready to be played, Mohu introduced Channels to go with their HDTV antenna, and Rabbit TV is focused on discovery,.

3. Navigating the TV.

Let’s look at number three.

I propose we ban the requirement that TV and movie loving people have to press the INPUT button on their remote or press a MENU/HOME button to access something other than their basic bundle – over the air (OTA) or over the top (OTT).

SVOD services should be in a guide and accessible along with whatever combo of OTA or OTT packages you access. Pull up the guide and it includes them. You can surf by category or recommendation or search for a title, actor, etc. and be delivered a show without having to enter a new walled garden; without having to enter an apps section or a home base. Scrolling up or down, with a remote or smart phone, should display all choices. We need seamless. It should be like watching an embedded video in a website without having to go to YouTube, Vimeo or any other video site.

This is as much, if not more, a collaboration and partnerships issue as a technological one. And as more and more great content becomes available to stream – including theater – it’s something that needs to get addressed quickly.

Hulu and Apple are doing just that.