VietNamNet Bridge – OTT televisions still cannot collect subscription fees from clients, thus incurring a loss for a long time. However, they still have been developing interaction features to survive the stiff competition in the market.

Believing that OTT is an irresistible trend, television service providers have jumped into the market, though none of them has made profit on it.

Pham Anh Chien, President of Medianet, said on January 1, 2014, on VTV Plus-- the TV service provided by VTVcab and Medianet, the first online mobile interactive TV program was officially broadcasted.

The program has been on the air on VTV6 channel’s “Bua trua vui ve” (joyful lunch) since January 1.

Together with the TV interactive features, VTV Plus has also begun providing the secondscreen feature which allows users to simultaneously select through discussion, share ideas or watch different images at the same time on two screens.

VTV Plus proves to be the first television that provides online programs that allow to interact directly with viewers. “Bua trua vui ve” is a “blockbuster” thanks to the feature.

VTV Plus has attracted 2.5 million subscribers, while the interaction feature would be provided to them free of charge.

VTV Plus is the first OTT television which tried to collect subscription fee from July 1, 2014. However, as Chien admitted, most of them are free users. VTV Plus is still in the investment period, while it still dare not think of making profit now.

Since the OTT televisions still cannot collect fees from TV watchers, they expect to make money with interaction services. Interactions, together with VOD (video on demand), are the outstanding features of OTT TV. As for TV on mobile, 70 percent of the program contents could be open for interactions.

Chien hopes OTT televisions would be able to collect a fee with interactive TV in the future. Televisions can either collect fees directly from viewers for original and special contents, or collect fees indirectly through ads for free contents.

He went on to say that since the Internet is an “open environment,” there would be no big differences between the rivals in terms of technology. Therefore, in the future, there would be the stiff competition in terms of program content, while an interaction feature would serve as the “weapon” in the televisions’ competition.

Le Anh Dung, Director of the Center for Technology Research and Development  under VTC Corporation, affirmed that “authentic OTT TV” is much better than unlicensed TV, and that OTT is the inevitable trend for televisions to follow.

The OTT TV’s features are surely preeminent than IPTV or traditional TV. Especially, the VOD and interactive features would introduce a new way of enjoying TV. Viewers not only purely watch their favorite TV programs, but can also exchange views with friends or create interesting contents to respond to the service providers.

Though complaining that the piracy has been hindering the development of OTT TV, TV service providers hope the problem will be settled soon thanks to the stricter control by the watchdog agencies. Only the copyrighted content will be broadcasted on OTT TVs, which will also help increase the attractiveness of the services.

Dung complained that he can see a very high capability of OTT TV commercialization, but televisions now still have to await a legal framework for them to do this.

Buu Dien