The Art and Science of OTT Recommendation Algorithms
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Read the complete transcript of this video:
Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen: Michelle, what are you seeing as you talk to services in the industry and technology providers, in terms of improving the types of recommendations that are delivered to viewers and helping them find the content they want to watch?
Michelle Abraham: Well, definitely, using some sort of algorithms recommendation engine a part of most services and Jon and Peter are right in that. Oftentimes, there are reasons for what's shown at the top. There's all of the analytics that support that, there are business reasons for recommending certain shows over others that don't necessarily factor into what the consumer has actually watched in the past. So, you do find that there's a desire to promote new content, whether it necessarily fits with what the consumers watched or not. So using a recommendation engine and it's algorithms has really become, to a certain extent, an art as much as a science in making sure that you are pleasing the viewers as much as possible. As a service provider, you have business reasons for recommending certain things--new titles that you want to promote, things that maybe you're getting paid to promote, or original content.