The Future of TCO Report

Most OTT services are struggling with mounting economic pressure. Content acquisition costs are rising, churn is difficult to contain, and user expectations continue to evolve faster than many platforms can adapt. In this environment, media companies are forced to reassess how they allocate resources—not just to maintain service quality, but to drive sustainable growth.

OTT services that succeed over the next five years will be the ones that orchestrate the best. The future of TCO lies not in reducing cost alone, but in maximizing the value of each dollar spent. That means designing platforms for adaptability, enabling AI to continuously optimize the service, and measuring success based on outcomes - not features.

This report is for technology and business leaders tasked with navigating this increasingly complex landscape. It introduces a new strategic lens on ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ (TCO); one that moves beyond static accounting models and toward a dynamic, outcome-driven framework. It draws on lessons from adjacent industries like D2C and e-commerce, where modular technology stacks and AI-native orchestration are already redefining how platforms scale, optimize, and compete.

What this report covers:

- A redefinition of TCO for modern OTT platforms

- Composability and orchestration lessons from D2C and e-commerce

- Current bottlenecks in OTT architecture and operations

- A framework for AI-native, outcome-oriented service delivery

- A future vision for streaming platforms as living, evolving systems