BB Media and OTT.X presented an online conference entitled “Join the Leading U.S. Companies in the OTT Value Chain and Learn to Implement Best Practices,” which aimed to educate the main channels, publishers and media outlets in Latin America on OTT best practices, processes and business models to accelerate adoption of profitable SVOD, AVOD and FAST in the region.
The main topics that were covered during the webinar were streaming, CTV and OTT trends in the United States, operational challenges and how to overcome them, and the latest updates and news on FAST and AVOD, among other topics. BB Media and OTT.X opened and closed the webinar.
“In Latin America, a lot of things need improvements, especially when it comes to AVOD or FAST opportunities, content distribution, metadata, dubbing, and subtitling. A lot of things can be done in the region. However, as in the United States, a lot of things have evolved in Latin America. In fact, there a lot in common between these two territories,” commented Tomás Gennari, CEO of BB Media, in the beginning of the event.
Acording to Gennari, the potential audience for any streaming platform in Latin America is huge. The penetration of fixed broadband has evolved so much in the last couple of years, going from 39% in 2017 to 53% in 2022, which means there are 92 million households with fixed broadband in Latin America. In the United States, that figure is 122 million.
When it comes to fixed broadband speeds, 54% of households in Latin America have a 20 MB or higher speed, while 82% have a 5 MB or higher, which in Gennari’s words is “more than enough for HD streaming.” Furthermore, the CEO of BB Media revealed that 86% of broadband households in the region have access to at least one streaming service. At the same time, 72% of connected households in Latin America have a Smart TV, which is currently the preferred device for online viewing.
When it comes to how the OTT market has evolved in Latin America - a region in which pay TV penetration has historically been very high -, Gennari commented that, nowadays, 15% of total households in the region consume only pay TV. Meanwhile, 24% were identified as households with pay TV and OTT; 21% were OTT-only households; and the remaining 40% were defined as a fresh market, which are households with neither pay TV or OTT services.
Furthermore, the executive shared some quick facts about the OTT market in Latin America. In detail, BB Media showed that the current OTT penetration in the territory is 45%, being the SVOD business model the most popular (75%) followed by AVOD (66%). On average, Latin American households are subscribed to six streaming platforms, and the offer is huge: there are 163 unique OTT platforms available in the region.
The online webinar also presented panels in which executives from companies such as TheTradeDesk, nScreenMedia, Rightsline, Amagi, Friend MTS, Whip Media, Omdia, Vizio, Spherex, Pixelogic Media, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, and TelevisaUnivision discussed about OTT trends in the United States, the AVOD and FAST segment, and the operational challenges of OTT services.
By Federico Marzullo