Monika| Wed May 07 2014 CET| Industry insights
Take only a few successful examples, quoted by Forbes:
Although opportunities for live video are up for grabs, the live streamed video still remains challenging to pursue, preventing many premium content owners from going full speed with Live supported, or online-only events. As Dorothy Pomerantz from Forbes has put it:
“[…] Live streaming can be risky. The more people who try to watch something online at the same time, the greater the risk that there will be problems with the quality of the stream or that the feed will come crashing down.”
For the past 3 years we’ve been working with the OVP partners such as: Brightcove, Kaltura and Livestream and have powered a number of live events (i.e.Viaplay, TEDMED or Cirque Du Soleil).
This tremendous experience helped us to identify 4 challenges of LIVE Streaming Pay-Per-View:
When creating a Live PPV you actually need to think toward the last 10’-30’ minutes of pre-booking, anticipating the downpour of purchases. Did you know that 10% of the bookings happen in the last 10’ before the event? This is how the average booking curve looks like:
At this point many things can go wrong. You need to stay alert:
No matter what devices they’re on, you have to deliver one, consistent, High Quality experience for your viewers. You should be aware where the traffic to your live PPV will be coming from.
This impacts 2 critical aspects of running a Live PPV:
Choosing between a local or a global event results in complexity of handling the tax differences, different payment methods, price points and an aspect of geo-blocking. Keep in mind all these factors, when geo-extending your Live PPV events. To give you some ideas: a large pay-per-view event, like we did for Cirque du Soleil, can quickly sell in 80 countries or more!
People expect a TV like user experience. They buy, and it has to work – immediately and in HD. Otherwise, they’ll start to complain. If it takes you, let’s say, two hours to answer their inquiries during a two-hour event, your consumers will hit social media and request a refund. This can quickly result in chaos. It will reduce your profitability & credibility.
You need to be able to answer complaints within minutes, despite the surge in traffic. At Cleeng, we answer customer queries within 15 minutes, which is far above the average industry standards (4h support). You cannot anticipate the tickets load in a short time. Make sure to hire the best customer support professionals or outsource your support force.
As pioneers in monetizing LIVE, we’ve been knocking down the walls of complexity for LIVE starting in 2011. Two months ago we launched Cleeng Live! – a simplified set-up and workflow, that saves time and energy. We made sure that anyone who wants to embrace Live online video, gets all its benefits, hassle-free. Cleeng Live! gives you:
Download our free Live PPV guide