Reporting Back From London
OTT Question Time Live 2025 @The British Museum
Two days, 50+ speakers, 16 fireside chats and 10 panels. No way I can recap it all so I’ve taken the approach of taking one data point, one insight from each of the sessions I attended (I’ve missed a few of course so please share addl insights in the comment section) plus giving you access to full-length recaps of the 4 panels I had the pleasure of preparing for.
Let’s dig in.
Full-length recaps:
🎙️ ITV’s Innovation Principle? FAFO
Not another acronym 🤦🏻♀️ … Well this one I’ll allow big time: FAFO = f*ck around and find out. The core principle driving ITV’s innovation at ITV Adlabs.
🎙️ Free Streaming Trends & Opportunities
Imagine Olivier Jollet (Pluto TV) and I catching up at a café hoping for an espresso (we’re still waiting on that coffee by the way...) to chat about Free Streaming Trends heading into 2025.
Quick hits: Sora OpenAI, YouTube, Channel 5, Tubi, Netflix, Liberty Global and much more.
“Personalised ads drive retention“.
Justin Gupta, Head of Broadcast & Video Ads EMEA - Google
→ Shame we didn’t get data behind that statement. We’ll have to believe Justin but it’s interesting because it shows the flywheel behind free streaming for both viewers and platforms.
“Viewer expectations are not set by global players. »
Jonas Engwall, CEO - Bedrock
→ By who then? Local players like M6, RTL+ or Videoland. I don’t know if I agree (Netflix very much set the bar of what one expects of a platform) but for sure they shouldn’t (now that the streaming ecosystem has matured) as it fuels a uniformity of viewing experience that I see as a threat to discovery and engagement, especially when it comes to local content.