During the first Nextv Series Argentina’s day, the conference that took place on May 14th and 15th at the Intercontinental Hotel in Buenos Aires, the ‘OTT Pay TV: skinny bundles and add-on channels’ panel was developed, in which Federico Llano (Viacom), Gustavo Castro (Movistar), Gustavo Morandé (Zapping TV) and Jose Luiz Ribeiro (Alpha Networks) took part. Some of the topics debated were the active role of customers to choose alternatives to pay TV to access different content, and how OTTs try to satisfy the customer’s  demands aiming to offer an easier access to content for them.

Gustavo Castro, Content Manager of Movistar Argentina, initially expressed himself on the challenge of putting together a new business model to watch, contrast and pay for content. ‘We found people who were not willing to pay what they asked for the contents’, he said, referring to Movistar Play, which was recently launched in Argentina. “We are committed to look for customers who are not in the system. We show them a more personalized offer, and we aim for the client to build their own catalog’, he said. On the other hand, Gustavo Morandé, Executive Director of Zapping TV, said that with his OTT he prevents ‘an opportunity for ‘cord cutting’, that is, for those who choose to ‘cut’ cable TV and access to content on the Internet. ‘Our focus is not on the programmers’, he said, and stressed the need to find niches when creating contents. ‘Many of them are generated by us as a complement to the programmers’ offer’. According to Morande, one of the central challenges lies in making available to the client a more limited range of content, in order to establish clear differences between skinny bundles and traditional cable operators.

‘It is necessary to provide the client with the activity of entertainment, which can be solved with the least effort’, said Gustavo Castro, in line with Morande’s point of view. In addition, Federico Llano, Emerging Business Director Latam & Brazil of Viacom, emphasized finding a solution to this problem, and gave details of Paramount + and Pluto TV. “We launched Paramount + in Brazil, and we announced Pluto’s expansion to Latin America before the end of the year. There is a service that goes to the Premium side,  and will cost about USD 5 per month. Pluto is a start-up with 17 million users and will be available for free, as YouTube, and with a linear channel format’, he said.

José Luiz Ribeiro, Regional Sales Director of Alpha Networks Latam, insisted on the need for today’s operators to be content hubs, and expressed that ‘all catalogs have to live together. He also  suggested the promotion of tools that help clients , like the “advanced search”, so that it recovers contents of their interest. In this regard, Morande concluded that the main task currently being developed focuses on ‘filling a space that the others do not fill’, and insisted that the VOD must be ‘ a complement to ‘live”, where each one navigates for his own’.