Bango is back from IBC 2019 in Amsterdam with achy legs and a host of interesting business opportunities to explore! Billed as, “The World’s Most Influential Media, Entertainment & Technology Show”, IBC is a long-established meeting place for over 50,000 professionals from across the industry. This was the first time Bango has exhibited and we were not disappointed.

With Bango’s unique mobile commerce offering across payments, app marketing and resale services, IBC 2019 offered a perfect opportunity to showcase why Bango Platform technology is increasingly being chosen by OTT streaming services and resellers, across all technologies but especially cable, TV, Set-top Box (STB) and telcos.

In between meetings, we had a chance to explore the event and uncover some of the trending themes which look set to impact the media tech landscape. Here we look at the top 3 key themes from IBC 2019:

1. 5G

It is almost impossible to miss the prevalence of 5G as the “next big thing” everywhere you look. Its power to transform existing industries like broadcast and multicast TV distribution is immense.

With all transformative tech comes a need to create killer services for consumers. High bandwidth, low latency and more tech features mean nothing to most people. But what about 4K and 8K movies, TV and on-demand sports content? Game changing potential! As OTT services look to capitalize on 5G, Bango expect to see:

  • new service tiers in OTT offers; prime for bundling and resale with 5G plans
  • more niche content to buy, rent or subscribe to; ideally suited to optimal consumer targeting, promotion and monetization
  • a market and economic need to improve the ROI for 5G operators

2. New OTT direct to consumer services

More and more OTT streaming services are emerging. New mega-players are offering consumers more choices of how to access their unique content.

It sounds great on paper, but too much choice from too many players can be paralyzing for consumers. This creates an opportunity for anyone with a billing relationship to create bundles of services and act as a billing re-aggregator while content is being disaggregated.

A menu of OTT services with benefits like multi-play discounting, tailored reward schemes and other unique perks is a compelling offer to retain existing customers and attract new ones. Key in maximizing this benefit is the intelligent use of data to tailor campaigns and offers; something we at Bango have been promoting for some time now.

3. eSports and cloud-based gaming subscriptions

eSports revenue is estimated to hit $1billion by 2023 according to a Futuresource report at IBC this year. eSports is already a great sector and a growing opportunity; giants like Amazon Twitch and Microsoft Mixer are already driving innovation and consumer uptake plus a bit of healthy competition.

This new report seems to have got broadcasters more interested, who are looking to add eSports content to increase appeal and broaden services to new demographic groups.

When you start to evangelize eSports streaming as a gamers’ Netflix or Amazon Prime Video service … bundling and other promotions that bolster resellers primary service value and success look like winners too!

Bango and the team will be back at IBC 2020 but we left IBC 2019 with a feeling that there are even more people who could thrive in the Bango circle… are you one of them? Contact sales@bango.com to find out more.