Television, broadband and phone communications lost 687,000 subscribers during Q3, posting its worst 12-month stretch ever, according to Wall Street media analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson. Pay-TV troubles are likely due to the increase in over-the-top (OTT) video consumption. In fact, OTT experienced a growth in excess of 50 percent last year alone with companies such as NetFlix, Hulu, Apple, and Amazon driving the market past $8 billion in 2012, according to research from ABI Research. But rather than being threatened by OTT, operators can actually benefit from extending their reach to multi screen devices.At a recent panel session at the Digital TV World Summit in London, Oliver Lewis, SVP, customer propositions, Sky Deutschland, said that the proliferation of mobile devices will help drive up the value of subscriptions, however, only if operators were able to develop sophisticated user experiences for these platforms.

“Customers can now build up libraries of content that have been promoted to them. The flagship brands have the best opportunity to make the most of this,” Lewis said, citing the example of content such as Game of Thrones. “That’s the type of content that people will search for and consume,” he added.

Operators hold the key to premium content; therefore, those who can securely offer this “exclusive” content on multiple devices will grow their market and revenue exponentially.  Moreover, Lewis warned that restricting the right of any content to a particular infrastructure is a death wish for pay-TV development. Because of this, Sky has made it a point to secure exclusive rights to content across several platforms.