Commentary

Taking OTT's Measure

With a quip, MediaPost EIC Joe Mandese opened a session on Wednesday at MediaPost’s TV & Insider Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, saying: “OTT is the new linear.”

To that point, his panelists, Julie Anson, Associate Director Partner Innovation, Advanced TV, Magna Global; Marissa Jimenez, President, MODI Media; and Chris Peterson, Managing Partner, R2C Group, talked about measurement, segmentation and programming.

Peterson said his company’s clients are DTC with business objectives and segmentation linked to linear programming. For OTT, they talk to the client and ask whether the segmentation represents its future. Based on the audience, how big a role should OTT play? His clients have an extreme digital mindset. “OTT is the first thing they want to go to.”

Anson said Magna looks at TV as a holistic universe, finding audiences across it. “There comes a point of diminishing return,” she said, “when someone’s been hit too many times.”

User ID will require an immense amount of device graphs. OTT is TV, not digital. It’s not holding your phone. Maybe years from now we’ll be able to tell that someone is holding a phone in front of the TV. “This is too much ‘how the sausage is made.’”

“OTT is the new sausage now,” Joe Mandese said.

1 comment about "Taking OTT's Measure".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, February 26, 2019 at 3:49 p.m.

    OK, so what percent of all viewing is now done via OTT versus "linear"? If OTT is the "new sausage"---an interesting choice of words---wouldn't one expect it to account for at least a third of viewing, currently, and heading for 75% or thereabouts in a few years? But what if, despite huge percentage gains, OTT represents only 10-15% of all viewing? Does that still qualify it as of sausage magnitude?I wonder what Nielsen has to say on this subject. I'd better check out "TV Dimensions" and find out.

    Nevertheless, least one deduce from my comment that I dislike OTT, not at all. Were I an advertiser I would be  seriously considering it as a valuable targeting complement to my larger "linear TV" buys, but, perhaps not as their equal or superior in overall importance. Maybe in five years. We will see.

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