The competition for living room and mobile TV is fierce. Cable TV companies, IPTV & OTT providers and Broadcasters all compete in the space for traditional linear TV and at the same time people are watching more and more content from streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. Nowadays many expats can even watch TV from their home countries online. In this competitive space, it is not easy to launch a new TV service that stands out from the crowd. Content is still King, but consumers want to define how and when they consume content. Feel, attractiveness and ease of use are the important factors, or the ‘sticky’ that keeps customers loyal to a service. Searching and browsing content has to be intuitive and consumers should have easy access to popular and recommended content. Extensive and expensive channel package subscriptions, ordered by phone or email, are relics from the past. Today’s viewers are looking to order the content they want when they want it. Subscribing to new content and terminating old subscriptions should be done directly from the user interface. People today want to use TV, VoD and Recording services on a device of their choice. The keywords for successful service providers are anytime, anywhere, with seamless switching from one device to another. Early adopters even look for APIs and documentation for building applications on their favorite devices. Rapid advancements in device and streaming technology call for future-proof solutions. By selecting hardware and software components that are built with open and proven standards such as HTML5, Android and Linux it is possible to build services that stand the test of time. There are undoubtedly many challenges for new players, but there are also great opportunities, as the market for IPTV & OTT is constantly evolving.

List of acronyms:

• IPTV = Internet Protocol Television
• OTT = Over-The-Top
• VoD = Video-On-Demand
• API = Application Programming Interface