At the recent Broadcasters Convention – Southern Africa in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Mr Stephen Watson, CEO of Discover Digital, shared his views that OTT streaming is no longer a “complementary technology,” but an absolute imperative for survival.
Mr Watson argued that broadcasters must now view their investment in OTT as essential to “buying additional satellite capacity,” because the audience has moved and must be reached where they are.
Mr Watson highlighted the clear and increasing generational divide in media consumption. The adoption of streaming platforms by younger audiences is “significantly higher” than for the more mature audience, who remain habitually tied to linear TV. This shift echoes trends in mature markets, where streaming has already overtaken traditional television.
The critical takeaway for broadcasters, according to Mr Watson, is the urgency of this migration: audiences “are not going to wait for you” and “will shift into wherever else they can find the content.” Broadcasters who fail to adapt risk losing their audience base entirely, forcing some to turn to existing platforms like YouTube to find their footing in the digital space.
The session detailed two fundamental changes in audience behaviour: the device of choice and the preferred content format.
For years, the mobile phone was considered the “complementary device” or “second device” for media consumption. According to Mr Watson, this is no longer the case. The mobile phone is now the primary device, particularly among youth.
Accompanying this device shift is a preference for short-form content. Consumption of 9×6 short-format content has “overtaken 16×9 consumption long format on streaming,” a trend that aligns with the exponential growth of video across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and even LinkedIn.
Addressing the economic realities unique to the continent, Mr Watson stressed the difficulty of establishing subscription-based models. “Africans are allergic to paying for content,” he stated.
This reality means that free-to-air broadcasters must stay in the free space, limiting their monetisation strategy to both direct and programmatic advertising. This strategy, however, presents a significant hurdle. Monetising through OTT advertising “is a completely different sales pitch to traditional television advertising sales,” requiring a thorough understanding of the strategy and the market’s approach to ad-supported monetisation (AVOD).
While there is a clear “acknowledgement of the need” for OTT, Mr Watson concluded that the primary obstacles for broadcasters in Southern Africa are a lack of skills and financial resources to commit to a dedicated strategy.
To listen to Mr Watson’s view, please click HERE.
