Among the few ubiquitous TV show formats is the home renovation genre, which helped define HGTV, and is now commonplace on a slew of traditional cable channels like DIY Network and FYI. So it was surprising to Candis and Andy Meredith-who hosted the series "Old Home Love" for HGTV and DIY Network-when they discovered that the genre was largely absent on digital and social platforms.

Four years ago, the WWE wrestling league launched a curious new product: WWE Network. The network was streamed over-the-top to consumers, featuring all the company's pay-per-view events live. It was a bold move, and a disruptive one.

The company, which now has more than 17 million subscribers in the U.S., lost approximately $920 million last year, according to SEC filings from its owners, and received $1 billion in investments from its corporate parents. Both of those numbers were up significantly from 2016, when the company received $733 million, and lost $531 million.

The study, which was conducted by the media research group Kagan (owned by S&P Global Market Intelligence), found that 85% of executives surveyed from OTT providers, pay-TV providers, content owners and advertisers said that third-party data will be an important driver of the OTT ad market.