SVOD, TVOD & AVOD
OTT and VOD are the common terminologies today. The way people spend their time for entertainment has changed recently in the past few years. Thanks to Amazon & Netflix and the internet provider telecom companies. OTT and VOD are changing the way video is produced, sold, distributed and watched.
VOD — Video On Demand — is what allows users to watch content of their interest from an ocean of the options available. The VOD platforms allows audiences to select the content they want to watch and access that any point of time. In traditional TV cable distribution network, at a given point of time all the users would be watching the same content broadcasted. Whereas in VOD, users have the freedom to CHOOSE the content they want to watch. This has provided a customized personal entertainment video watching experience to the users.
OTT — Over The Top — means delivery of a video content via the internet without the traditional TV cable or satellite service. OTT is a subset of VOD. VOD can be available in Cable connection or internet connection. OTT refers to the latter. OTT delivers content to audience via mobile phone apps, gaming consoles, streaming devices like desktop and laptops.
There are several models of Video-On-Demand on basis of how its finance works.
1. SVOD — Subscription based Video-On-Demand
Subscription VOA is a type of service where the audience has to first enter into a subscription agreement which will grant access to the service- until to unsubscribe. This allows the audience to watch with no limits — one can watch unlimited number of videos from the available collection unlimited number of times.
The best example of SVOD is Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime.
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The subscription time length can be in monthly frequency. This allows the user to unsubscribe and subscribe back again at any point of time.
2. TVOD — Transaction based Video-On-Demand
Transactional VOD is opposite of SVOD. Here, one has to pay on basis of the video content watched. One simple analogy can be this: SVOD is the ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet dinner where one pays an entry fee and can eat any amount of any item available; TVOD is a restaurant where you do not pay for entry but pay as per the food that you eat.
TVOD does not charge for subscription but you will have to pay as per the content you watch. Most often, recently released movies are watched in TVOD but series, sports and particular events are also watched in TVOOD. iTunes is an example of TVOD.
3. AVOD — Advertisement based Video-On-Demand
Advertisement VOD is a model that provides video content for free to users. Users are free to login and stream videos and in return they will have to watch the ads. The ads can be in the beginning, in between or at the end of the video. Users will have to pay by watching the ads instead of paying from their wallet. Youtube, Dailymotion are the examples of AVOD. The channels get the amount from the advertisers instead of the viewers.
There are a few operators that operate with mixed models. For example, users will pay a monthly fee and have access to certain types of content. But, there will still be some content which they can watch by paying an extra fee. Or there can be some contents that they can watch for free even without signing in. Fpr example, YouTube is moving from SVOD to AVOD and it has a mixed model.
The newly released video contents are first released in TVOD, then in SVOD and then finally in AVOD. This is because of price skimming. This allows maximum amount to be swept from the users at each level.
Durgesh is an Electronics & Communication Engineer who is working as a Business Manager in an Employee Brand Consulting company after he completed his MBA in Marketing and Business Analytics. He normally writes on recent technological and business stuffs.
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