Over-The-Top VS TV Everywhere: How Disruptive is OTT to the Pay TV Business? Author: Jia Wu Publication Date: 16 Jun 2010 Pages: 9

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The World Wide Web has shown to be disruptive to numerous business sectors ever since the dawning of the Internet economy. In the digital media sector in particular, where the marginal cost of transferring bits and bytes is virtually zero, many large firms have been wiped out or forced to radically change their operating strategy – pressured by a steady inflow of innovative new-comers in the market. The music and publishing industries no longer operate in the way they did ten years ago, nor is the TV industry likely to do so ten years from now. As over-the-top video (OTT) services, such as Hulu and Netflix, have begun to exhibit their disruptiveness to the very lucrative “traditional” TV business, cable companies in the US are responding to the challenge by introducing the TV Everywhere initiative. Will online video services eat cable companies’ lunch, or is over-the-top video service just a bump in the road for the hundred-billion dollar TV business? This insight examines the competition between over-the-top video service and “TV Everywhere” services of pay TV service providers.