How PwC helped RecordTV build an ‘Over The Top’ media platform from scratch

Advisors on strategy, business & pricing modelling, legal & tax services.

RecordTV, Brazil’s second-largest broadcast network, was in danger of falling behind its competitors. Brazilian consumers were increasingly ‘cutting the cord’ and turning to over-the-top (OTT) streaming services. From 2016 to 2017 alone, the number of Brazilians severing ties with pay-TV in a single year jumped by more than 150%, to 761,726.

At the start of 2018, RecordTV offered no OTT service, and its main competitor had launched one in 2015, giving it a three-year head start. RecordTV faced the daunting scenario of missing out on a meaningful share of Brazil’s fast-growing OTT market. That market is substantial – approximately 200 million potential customers with an OTT penetration rate of only 30%.

The network had a good product to sell, including popular telenovelas, reality shows and top-rated music programs. To capitalize on its programming strengths, the broadcaster needed a compelling OTT competitive strategy, business case and platform. And it needed them in a hurry.

To help RecordTV create a powerful OTT strategy quickly, PwC set up a war room in its Experience Center – a digital accelerator that draws on a global network of some 3,000 creative, digital business and industry experts. Teams from RecordTV and PwC conducted 14 weekly agile sprints tackling such challenges as brand essence, audience behaviour, customer experience, technology platforms and business and pricing models. Agile sprints crisply define a major challenge and divide it into manageable components that teams can conceptualise, model and test in a week.

The sprints generated new content insights and ideas, and identified the best media formats and a uniquely flexible subscription format. The process also led to comprehensive pricing and tax models, and financial tools to maximise content partnerships. Working with RecordTV, PwC helped to create a tailored CRM strategy based on the models.

Within a short time RecordTV had a novel and competitive product for the new business. The multi-content platform will launch in August 1st, 2018 and will be the first in Brazil to carry content from a broad range of producers. The first release supports video and television viewing on multiple devices. But the road map goes much further. To name one example, the platform will in the future include social media tools such as a subscription editor that allows users to upload their own point of view during a live transmission and share it with the platform’s audience.

The new platform challenges competitors with a strongly differentiated and compelling offering to keep existing customers from ‘cutting the cord’ and even to attract new subscribers.