Photo: OSN

[Via Satellite 04-20-2016] OSN, the Middle East Direct-to-Home (DTH) television provider, believes it will keep a strong position in the pay-TV market despite the entrance of Netflix and similar services. Mark Billinge, OSN CTO, believes these new digital players are not having much of an impact on OSN. Speaking to Via Satellite, he claimed OSN’s content offering is still far superior to what those digital players offer.

“It is an offer in the market that customers will dip in and have a look. In the long run, the adage is content is king, and we have a number of exclusive pay-TV rights. Are they impacting us? Probably not,” he said.

OSN offers Set-Top-Boxes (STBs) today that are connected to the Internet, and with it, a library of content. The company has about 2,000 Video-on-Demand (VOD) assets, catch-up, subscription programming as well as its newly launched OSN store, supporting all its transactional content. The company also has OSN Play, which is its tethered digital platform, comprised of a mixture of VOD and linear services for iOS, Android and smart TV devices. It also has Go TV, an untethered on-demand offering on a pay monthly basis. However, OSN continues to have a strong offer on traditional DTH, as well as other digital platforms.

“We are fairly well-equipped to combat these new entrants into the market. Since the launch of Netflix in this region, the content and size of library on offer has been discussed quite a lot,” added Billinge.

OSN currently operates 13 transponders at 7 degrees west. The company took an additional transponder that came online late last year, and continues to launch additional HD services to satisfy market demand. Billinge said OSN is more interested in optimizing the use of its current capacity than purchasing more at this stage.

“OSN also continues to evolve our compression and modulation techniques to draw as much as efficiency out of the capacity we have. We are not looking for any additional capacity in the near future,” he explained.

The company is not standing still there and is embarking on a major technology project as it aims to get 4K-ready.

“Currently, we are in a project to develop our next generation platform, which is going to be 4K Ultra-HD capable. There will be some other interesting customer-facing features, which will be new to the region, for streaming and sharing content within the home network. This is the main focus of our capital expenditure plans and technology efforts through 2016,” said Billinge.

In terms of when OSN will launch a 4K service, Billinge said OSN hopes to launch that product at the end of this year or early next year; he believes the timing for 4K content is right. OSN is also tracking new technologies such as High Dynamic Range (HDR) and this is where satellite still has plenty of life. With the bandwidth requirements necessary to deliver 4K with a Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee, Billinge does not think IP “can really cut it just yet across many areas” in the Middle East.

However, while the market is getting more competitive and consumers have more choice than ever, low pay-TV penetration means there is still a significant opportunity for a player like OSN.

“The outlook is still very positive. The penetration for pay-TV is still relatively low in the region, which means there is plenty of opportunity for the providers. There is competition coming into the market from new digital players as well as other DTH operators trying to get into the entertainment space, but we are pretty bullish. We still feel we have the best content and best technology by some distance. We feel pretty bullish about the short-term and the long-term outlook,” Billinge said. “I think in this region, DTH distribution still has a long life and a long way to go. We can’t and don’t ignore the digital distribution and potential benefits that [OTT] can bring. We have to see it as an opportunity to embrace new digital platforms. We are looking at those opportunities that OTT distribution can bring to us. We look at OTT as an opportunity to deliver even greater value to the customer rather than a threat.”