Argentina. On June 15 and 16, the 9th Edition of the NexTV Summit Series South America 2016, the conference on TV Everywhere and new OTT strategies, organized by the international consultancy Dataxis, was highlighted at the Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires.
According to Dataxis, Argentina had 70,000 OTT subscribers in 2011, the year Netflix was launched. At the end of 2015 there were already 730 thousand, almost 10 times more. This year they will exceed 900 thousand. And in five years, by the end of 2015, they will double to 1 million 800 thousand subscribers. Meanwhile, traditional Pay-TV will only grow from 8.6 million subscribers expected by the end of 2016 to 9.8 million in 2021.
OTT revenue will exceed $95 million this year, and will be more than $180 million in 2021. Still far from the 2870 million dollars that Pay TV will add, which by then will be completely multiscreen. Of the current 8.5 million Pay-TV subscribers, there are already 7.7 million subscribers who use TV Everywhere services from operators such as Cablevisión Play, DirecTV Play or Telecentro Play. Meanwhile, along with paid OTTs emerges the new business of free OTT channels on YouTube, Facebook, and other social networks, based on online advertising: Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs) are all the rage, mainly with music and children's content.
In view of this revolution of TV platforms, content and audiences, NexTV Summit Series South America 2016 united in a single conference the executives of Pay-TV, film, free-to-air TV and OTT companies and representatives of YouTube channels, to open the debate on new business models and relationships between technology providers, of services, value aggregators and content distributors.
Among the film industry executives who are entering the OTT model participated as panelists: Victor Tevah, Director New Business, Polka; Hernan Valenzuela, February 3 Vision / Fashion TV; Michelle Wasserman, SVP of International Business and Content Development, Endemol Shine Group and Ariel Tobi, CEO, SNAP TV who discussed how to deal with Netflix and how it is possible to create alternative OTTs.
Gonzalo Hita, Commercial Manager, Cablevision, Javier Ruete, CEO, TCC Uruguay and Nicolas Albistur, Director of Marketing and Programming for Argentina, DirecTV Latin America talked about how to transform Pay TV to attract new audiences.
Among the speakers on the new business of online video were panelists Javier Fainzaig, President, Farolatino, Mariano Kon, VP, Plataforma TV, Elena Antonini, VP of Sales, Dori Media Distribution Argentina, Gustavo Mónaco, Head of Distribution Latin America, SPI International Group and Pablo Lacroix, Digital Director, Leader Entertainmen. Among the confirmed panelists are also Miguel Fernandez, Technical Manager, Cablevisión, Guillermo Bertossi, VP Engineering, Fox International Channels, María Laura Ullmann, Director, SELECTA TV, Ricardo Nugué, CEO, VEOFLIX, Carlos Hullet, CEO, VIVO PLAY, Gustavo Castro, Marketing and Content - Servicio On Video Telefónica de Argentina and Manuel Altman, Contents & Solutions Business Manager, LG Electronics.
