[Satellite TODAY Insider 11-10-11] The global consumer online video market was worth close to five billion euros ($6.89 billion) in 2010 and could go over 21 billion euros ($28.93 billion) by 2015. This forecast comes from French research company, IDATE which released its latest research report on the subject ‘Online Video: Uses, Markets, Delivery Technologies/CDN’. IDATE is predicting impressive revenue growth from operators looking to bring OTT services to its customer base.

IDATE estimates that that 48 percent of the world online market derives from advertising revenues and 52 percent from pay-revenues, due what it says is “the peculiar structure of the market in the United States with strong sell-through on-demand revenues coming from Apple and Netflix, and to a lesser extent paid TV channels”.

IDATE says online video is now becoming part of the “mainstream”. It says that in developed countries 80 percent of Internet users are watching audiovisual content via the Web. Short clips, such as provided by YouTube or DailyMotion, are the favourite online videos, with 78 percent of broadband Internet users watching them.

The rise of online video and OTT services could have a profound impact on the satellite market, with pay-TV and broadcasting still the lifeblood for many satellite operators. The top FSS operators generate substantial portions of their revenues from DTH and broadcasting, so the rise and rise of OTT in theory could lead to some kind of erosion of revenues, particularly if people start turning their back on pay-TV as they watch more content online.

However, a number of DTH operators are already looking in this direction to supplement their offerings on satellite. Martin Lewerth, Executive Vice President of Pay-TV and Technology, Modern Times Group (MTG) which runs the Viasat DTH platforms in the Nordics recently told Via Satellite, “We see all forms of OTT distribution as a very strong complement to our underlying DTH business. We also see OTT as a great opportunity to reach out to all those households having some form of broadband access, even to those households that for various reasons do not have a relationship with our DTH platform.”

Certainly, there is now a slew of research on the OTT market. As well as the latest IDATE report on the market, IMS Research has also released another report looking at the use of CE devices in the consumption of OTT video content. IMS Research is forecasting that that in 2016, connected CE devices in the home will account for 27 percent of all OTT video transactions, up from 6 percent in 2010. One of the key drivers behind this growth is the geographic expansion of OTT service providers such as Netflix and Amazon. Companies effective in establishing partnerships with CE suppliers and increasing global usage of their apps on connected CE devices are quickly becoming leaders in the OTT market, according to IMS Research. The report is titled ‘Over-the-Top Video – Service Delivery & Business Models – 2011 edition’