OTT Question Time 2026 – Show Report

First things first: hats off to VOD Professional. OTT Question Time 2026 was a genuinely excellent couple of days. The sessions were thoughtful, the networking was easy, the food was great, and Cavendish Square proved to be a really strong new venue. Everyone was welcoming, engaged, and open to proper discussion — which isn’t always a given at industry events.

If you want a smart, UK-focused view of the broadcast-to-streaming transition, with a solid European flavour (delegates from Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and beyond), this is a show I’d strongly recommend adding to your calendar.

Vertical Video: Trend or Distraction?

I missed the very first session (8:30am is ambitious when you factor in the school run…), but the early focus on vertical video strategies was a recurring theme.

Broadcasters are clearly experimenting hard here, but I’m still unconvinced. Vertical works brilliantly for phones, clips, and short-form discovery, but the sense I got was that a lot of organisations are chasing the format rather than solving a problem.

The most sensible takeaway was also the simplest:‍

Don’t do it for the sake of it.

If vertical genuinely improves storytelling or reaches audiences you wouldn’t otherwise reach, great. But blindly chopping horizontal content into a 9:16 aspect ratio with AI and pushing it everywhere feels more like trend-following than strategy.

BBC, YouTube, and Incremental Reach

The multiplatform commissioning session, focused on the BBC, was one of the most interesting of the day.

I’ll hold my hands up: I softened my stance on the BBC’s YouTube strategy after hearing the full context. This isn’t about commissioning content for YouTube — it’s about publishing content to YouTube first, before it ultimately lands on iPlayer. UK viewing remains ad-free, and the core argument is incremental reach, not cannibalisation.

The data backs this up: YouTube viewing is largely additional, not substitutive. It reaches audiences that simply wouldn’t engage with PSB apps.

I still have reservations, particularly around international monetisation and YouTube’s ~45% revenue take but while this remains an experimental phase, it feels like a reasonable test rather than the existential threat the headlines suggested.

Freely: Long Overdue — and Absolutely Necessary

Jonathan Thompson’s session on Freely was a standout.

Put simply: this should have happened years ago.

If you aggregate PSB viewing, it still dwarfs YouTube in the UK yet for years broadcasters fragmented their audiences across dozens of apps. Freely solves a real problem: it restores the ability to flick between live, catch-up, and on-demand content in a single, free-to-air UX.

For viewers, it’s compelling. For broadcasters, it’s essential.

The announcement of a £69.99 Freely set-top box was particularly interesting an aggressive but smart move. If Samsung TV Plus or others want to compete, nothing stops them doing the same. Ultimately, choice wins.

My takeaway was simple:‍

If you’re not on Freely, you probably should be.

Syndication, Discovery, and the “Viewer Need State”

The strategist panel (BBC Studios, TF1, Sky, ProSieben) reinforced a clear industry shift: no one wins alone anymore.

Florian from TF1 shared a stat that stuck with me:

• UK viewers take ~11 minutes to find something to watch
• French viewers take ~22 minutes

That’s the real problem. Not content volume content discovery.

Everyone is now talking about syndication, collaboration, and meeting the viewer need state. Algorithms, not search, drive the majority of discovery — especially on platforms like YouTube, where 80% of viewing is recommendation-led.

The idea that audiences will happily bounce between 12 siloed apps is increasingly unrealistic.

Advertising: From Fixed Loads to Dynamic Tolerance

The most genuinely new learning for me came around advertising particularly YouTube.

Unlike broadcast’s fixed “X minutes per hour” model, YouTube operates on ad-load tolerance. Your ad experience is personalised and dynamic. Skip ads consistently, and the platform shows you fewer.

(Yes, my immediate takeaway was to start skipping even more ads.)

This has huge implications for forecasting, yield, and strategy. CPMs, ad loads, and outcomes are far less predictable, which makes YouTube powerful but uncomfortable for broadcasters used to certainty.

On the flip side, innovation in interactive ad formats was impressive:

• Amazon’s “add to basket”
• ITV’s interactive lead-gen ads on Samsung TVs (In one case generating so many leads the agency refused to believe the data.)

CTV interactivity is clearly a major growth area.

FAST, Tubi, and the Middle Ground

The fireside chat with Tubi was interesting, particularly as they position themselves between YouTube and traditional AVOD.

They’re not UGC. You must be a publisher partner. Ad loads are more consistent. There’s more predictability.

They’re flying in the US. Whether that traction translates fully to the UK remains an open question, but the model is clearly resonating.

A later session from social monetisation specialists was also a good reminder not to sleep on Facebook, particularly for older skewing audiences. Not everything is TikTok.

Feudal Media, Vikings, and Camelot

Alan Wolk’s “feudal media” analogy landed well.

Broadcast was the Roman Empire. It fell. Now we have fragmented kingdoms —Wessex, Northumbria — while Netflix, YouTube, and Big Tech play the role of Vikings, raiding ad revenues.

The danger of “paying the Danegeld” is that the Danes never leave.

Freely, in this analogy, starts to look like Camelot, a rare moment of unity. And honestly? That feels about right.

AI: Promising, but Not There Yet

AI was everywhere. The output, less so.

What was compelling was AI as a workflow accelerator - animating storyboards early, testing ideas sooner, reducing friction. That’s real value.

But AI-generated content itself still feels… underwhelming. Lots of effort, very average results. This may change in three, five, or ten years but we’re not there yet.

For now, AI is a tool not a replacement.

Final Takeaway

The big shift isn’t about platforms it’s about profitability over growth, lifetime value over vanity metrics, and making every broadcast minute work harder.

Owning the customer relationship is becoming less important than meeting audiences where they already are FAST, YouTube, social, syndication, partnerships.

OTT Question Time captured that shift perfectly.

A genuinely strong show. Highly recommended.

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