How Coronavirus Is Upending the OTT Streaming-Video Business

With millions of people under lockdown orders because of COVID-19, streaming-media usage has seen stratospheric increases. But while the pandemic has introduced opportunities to super-serve consumers, it also has created new challenges for all companies in the space.

The topic was covered in “COVID-19 and Its Impact on OTT Video,” an April 15 webinar presented by Variety and Bitmovin, as part of Bitmovin’s NAB interactive event series.

The webinar’s panel of expert speakers comprised Brian Fuhrer, SVP product strategy at Nielsen; Janet Balis, global advisory leader, media and entertainment at EY; Iván Markman, chief business officer at Verizon Media; and Stefan Lederer, CEO of Bitmovin. The webinar was moderated by Variety NY Digital Editor Todd Spangler.

Streaming to TVs has more than doubled during the pandemic. For example, on April 4, Americans watched 27 billion minutes of streaming content on TV — 50,000 years of content in just one day — versus about 70 billion per week a year ago, Nielsen’s Fuhrer said. Overall, the disruption from the coronavirus crisis has been unprecedented, he said: “In my career at Nielsen, I’ve never seen such

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