Following on the heels of a recent survey of over-the-top (OTT) trends published by Level 3 Communications and Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc. A new infographic reveals a potential shift in consumption and delivery practices.

Interest in live linear programming continues to grow, with OTT services beginning to offer live channels. As the report points out, OTT providers need to continue enticing new prospects to gain market share. For existing OTT providers, however, offering a video on-demand (VOD) service may not be enough to maintain, much less grow, market share.

Adding live linear channels is quickly becoming table stakes in OTT. New OTT entrants embrace a long-term strategy that includes both VOD and live linear channels.

One trend pointed out in June, as part of another Level 3 infographic based on insights from the StreamingMedia.com survey, may explain how live linear channels will finally allow OTT to attract a global audience.

Titled “How Well Do You Know The OTT Video Market?” the infographic shows that OTT delivery is morphing to a global television model, something traditional over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters have never been able to create.

The more robust OTT services use multiple CDNs, a fact that’s borne out in the recent survey and infographic. What’s even more interesting is the importance assigned to peering agreements, even for OTT services that use a single CDN.

Part of the reason for this shift may be revealed in the early June Level 3 infographic: while OTT has traditionally been a regional play, and continues to be for some of the major players like Amazon—more on that in Tim Siglin’s September 2015 “Streams of Thought” column—there’s a marked shift away from single-region OTT delivery towards global delivery.

Both the initial report and Level 3’s infographic highlight the fact that half of all OTT service providers focus on global delivery, with only a quarter focusing on single-region delivery. That shift is a clear indication that OTT is finding traction in a way that was technologically impossible for over-the-air broadcasters and limited even for satellite delivery—at least when it comes to customized content delivery for granular sub-regions across the globe.

Along with this shift to global delivery comes a shift in monetization strategies. Almost 60 percent of OTT providers surveyed say they have a multi-layered approach to their monetization strategy.

One trend pointed out in the Level 3 infographic is the rise in popularity in pay-per-view (PPV), even among those OTT providers that might traditionally only focus on advertising or subscription delivery.

While advertising and subscription almost always evenly split the OTT space, with neither one clearly dominating, the introduction of a third choice—PPV for major events—shows significant traction, especially for OTT providers that use both freemium and paid subscriptions as part of their OTT service.

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The original version of this post originally appeared on StreamingMedia.com. Republished with permission. 

The Engaging News Project from The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, has released new research that analyzed what happens when people are delivered the same news content presented in different ways. Some of the 2,671 participants browsed a site with a classic newsprint layout, while others looked at a page with a contemporary, modular and image-based layout. The same 20 articles, drawn from mainstream news media coverage about evergreen subjects, appeared on both sites.

Key takeaways from the Online News Presentation research include:

• Unique page views increased by at least 90% when participants viewed the contemporary homepage compared to the classic homepage.
• Recall of details from the articles, although low for all participants, nonetheless increased by at least 50% when participants viewed the contemporary homepage compared to the classic homepage.
• Study participants rated the contemporary site more positively than the classic site.
• Where the articles appeared on the page affected article recall more consistently than whether people clicked on the article.

The results show that people accessed more pages, appreciated, and learned more about the information contained in news articles when browsing a website with a contemporary homepage compared to a website with a classic homepage. These differences did not vary depending on the respondents’ age, education, or level of political knowledge.

Spredfast partnered with The CMO Club to survey over 200 Fortune 500 CMOs from around the country. They were asked questions about their biggest priorities, their challenges for 2014, and what they have found to be the best ways to engage their audiences. As they report, “with attention so fractured, it’s not surprising that 95% of CMOs surveyed are relying on content marketing to engage their audiences every step of the way.” And, not only do the majority of CMOs think this tactic gets results, they’re allocating budgets accordingly.

• 95% said that content marketing is important to their business in 2014.
• 66% of CMOs surveyed expect their content marketing efforts to yield a positive ROI in 2014.
• 95% of CMOs say that they believe “creating and finding new, timely, and engaging content is one of my biggest challenges in 2014.”
• 87% find social media to be the most engaging digital medium for serving real-time content

The full study offers additional comments from these CMOs including what they are focused on, the challenges they face, and what can be done to overcome said challenges.