Starting an OTT Business: How to Create & Launch an OTT Platform or Channel?

Have you always dreamed of creating an OTT platform? Here you will find a mini-guide on how to start an OTT platform with trending technologies for managing and distributing your video content across Mobile, Smart TVs, And Web.

Are you a budding entrepreneur hoping to break into the thriving streaming industry? Or are you a content producer looking to reach a larger audience? 

In any case, starting your own OTT solution or channel has the potential to disrupt the game. 

The OTT market is expanding rapidly as cord-cutting and demand for on-demand entertainment is growing. 

Did you know? The global OTT market is expected to reach a remarkable $223.98 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of 28.9% from 2021 to 2028. 

This statistic alone speaks to the relevance of the OTT platform development.

However, developing and deploying an OTT platform is not as simple as we believe.

It involves a lot of planning, smart execution, and a strong understanding of streaming.

From content acquisition and licensing to platform development and monetization strategies, there’s a lot to consider.

All these concepts will be covered in the next section in a few more minutes…..

How to Create an OTT Platform: A Step By Step Guide

Creating an OTT platform entails building a strong infrastructure for video hosting, streaming, and user management. 

Securing content rights, creating an easy-to-use interface, and installing scalable technology to handle high traffic numbers are all critical tasks. 

To differentiate yourself in an OTT industry, focus on high-quality streaming, broad content offers, and individualized user experiences.

1. Define your OTT platform development needs

Before building an OTT platform, you need to clearly define the scope and requirements. What kind of streaming service is this – just video on demand? Or live TV too? 

How about downloads for offline viewing? Social sharing/commenting features? Make a checklist of all the must-have and nice-to-have capabilities.

Stay moderate trying to research everything before creating OTT platform.

It’s better to start lean with just the core viewing experience nailed down. You can always add more features in future updates once you’ve proven product-market fit.

2. Set up your project budget  

Developing a professional OTT platform doesn’t come cheap, even for a minimum viable product. Start by fixing your rough budget first. 

In the upcoming section, we will cover the basic costs of building the OTT platform. Keep reading till the end.

If you’re a bootstrapped startup or individual, focus on scripting out a pricing range for each key component like video encoding, hosting, CDN delivery, content management, etc.

Lots of tools offer free tiers or free trials to reduce initial cash burn.

Bigger businesses with more resources can go all-in on hiring a full-scale OTT app development team. Just have a clear, realistic budget and timeline mapped out to avoid ballooning costs.

3. Define UX/UI capabilities 

Think about the last time you got straight-up annoyed using a poorly designed streaming app.

A clunky, confusing user interface is a surefire way to turn people off your OTT platform and send them running straight into the arms of your competition. You can’t afford to flub this.

One of the first major investments you need to make is bringing in some experienced UX/UI designers – whether freelance developers or OTT development companies.

They’ll help you map out every aspect of the viewer experience from that very first app loading screen to watching a video.

We’re talking about strategizing intuitive browse and search functions to easily find what you want. 

A video player that loads quickly and has all the controls in sensible places. Clean layouts for viewing details, ratings, suggestions, etc. Quick menus for updating settings or accessing help.

Everything needs to not only look sharp but function flawlessly. Don’t neglect responsive design either! 

Your OTT channel has to perform just as smoothly on mobile phones, tablets, desktop browsers, and TV devices like Fire TV. Today’s viewers expect a seamless experience on any device without any friction.

4. Ensure your video content is managed carefully  

At the end of the day, your video content library is the make-or-break factor for your OTT platform’s success. You need to assemble a solid catalog that gives people a compelling reason to sign up and keep that subscription active.

If you’re licensing existing movies, shows, etc., work out all the rights and payments upfront so you don’t run into legal issues. 

For original content, make sure you have streamlined workflows for uploading, storing, encoding, organizing, and scheduling video content through a dedicated OVP (online video platform).

Don’t slack on metadata either. Detailed information on titles, categories, descriptions, ratings, and more enables smarter content discovery for your viewers.

5. Choose an appropriate technology stack  

There’s a dizzying array of tools and technologies to build your OTT platform with. Do your research to find proven, cost-effective solutions that check all the boxes:

•  Video encoding/transcoding to optimize video quality at different resolutions/bandwidths
•  Scalable cloud hosting & storage 
•  Streaming server software like Android TV, Apple TV, etc.
•  Robust content management system
•  Fast, reliable CDN for video delivery
•  Tools for DRM, security, analytics 

Unless you have an experienced in-house dev team, you may want to consider hiring a professional OTT development company to stitch everything together into a seamless platform.

6. Select a business model to monetize your OTT service

How will you generate revenue from your video streaming platform? There are several business models to consider:

• Subscription/SVOD: Flat monthly rate for unlimited access (e.g. Netflix)
• Advertising/AVOD: Free streaming supported by video ads 
• Transactional/TVOD: Pay-per-view model for one-off rentals/purchases
• Hybrid: Combine free ad-supported with paid premium content tiers

There are pros and cons to each, so map out your audience’s willingness to pay, projected ad revenues, licensing costs, and more. Your monetization approach will guide product decisions.

7. Launch & maintenance

After months or years of planning and development, it’s finally time to launch your OTT platform to the public! Have a marketing plan ready to drive buzz and acquire those crucial early users.

But a launch is really just the beginning. 

You’ll need reliable dev-ops support for monitoring, updating, scaling, and continuously improving your video streaming service based on user feedback and data. 

An OTT platform is never really “finished” and will require dedicated maintenance long-term.

How Much Does it Cost to Create Your Own OTT Platform? 

Dreaming of launching the next Netflix, Hulu, or Disney+? 

Developing your own OTT video streaming platform isn’t cheap. There’s a whole bunch of expenses to account for, and costs can quickly skyrocket if you’re not careful.

At an absolute bare minimum, you can expect around $15,000 to $25,000 ,which is approximately the cost to build and launch a basic OTT platform for streaming pre-recorded video-on-demand content. 

If you want more advanced capabilities like live TV streaming, offline viewing downloads, slick user profiles, social sharing features, and the like, that baseline price can double or triple based on your customization and requirements.

A huge chunk of your budget will go towards hiring a skilled development team to actually build the platform – whether that’s in-house engineers or an OTT platform development company. You’ll need their expertise for complex components like:

• Video encoding and transcoding to ensure optimal visual quality 

• Implementing digital rights management (DRM) for security 

• Integrating with 3rd party services for payment processing, analytics, etc.

• Developing apps for various OTT devices like Apple TV, Android TV, etc.

Beyond team costs, you also have to pay for cloud hosting, content delivery network (CDN) bandwidth, video player licensing, 3rd party software subscriptions, and other operational/maintenance expenses month after month.

And that’s all before even factoring in spending for the actual videos that populate your content library! Licensing fees for TV shows and movies can stretch well into the millions for a comprehensive catalog.

The upfront and ongoing costs of running an OTT platform at scale are no joke. 

But most companies should realistically budget anywhere from $500K to over $1 million for a professional, fully-featured video streaming service that can truly compete.

How VPlayed Can Help Build Your Dream OTT Platform?

Now you know how to create and launch an OTT platform. But should you build it on your own? After reading this blog, you’ll find the answer is clear — yes, by hiring VPlayed .

They have experienced OTT developers who specialize in crafting world-class OTT platforms tailored to each client’s unique needs.

 One of the biggest perks is VPlayed’s flexible hiring model. They’ll work closely with you to assemble a dedicated development team with the precise skills and experience required for your platform’s scope and complexity.

Their pricing is refreshingly transparent too, with a pay-as-you-go model that makes it easy to manage budgets. Just a clear roadmap of development costs based on specs, timeline, and resources required.

When you partner with VPlayed, OTT platform is delivered in alignment with your business goals. 

They offer 100% risk-free satisfaction guarantee backing their services.

At the end of the day, creating a video streaming app requires deep expertise that most companies simply don’t have in-house.

VPlayed’s full suite of OTT development capabilities – combined with flexibility, transparent pricing, and customer-obsessed service – make them an ideal one-stop solution.

Conclusion:

If you’re eager to create your own OTT platform but unsure of where to start, this article has outlined the essential elements.

 Beyond the key steps and considerations detailed here, we’ve highlighted the critical features that any successful OTT service absolutely must have.

Rather than taking on the entire complex development process alone, the wise move is to partner with specialists in the OTT app development company like VPlayed. 

Their team lives and breathes building best-in-class video streaming platforms on par with market leaders like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

You can entrust VPlayed expertise to architect and execute an OTT platform carefully optimized to deliver a seamless, audience-pleasing viewing experience. Their seasoned professionals will guide you from initial planning through launch and ongoing support.

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