Espial Reveals How Video is the Growth Driver for Broadband; Future of Pay TV is Optimistic

Vision paper released today looks at the less talked about side of profitable video service; offers actionable insights toward profitable growth for operators

Espial (TSX: ESP), makers of award-winning Espial Elevate, an innovative TV-as-a-Service (TVaaS) platform, today released its vision paper, “Digital Transformation, The New Imperatives for Operators”. This paper reveals the real opportunities available for video operators that embrace a truly disruptive business model.

Taking a page from companies like Uber, AirBnB, and Amazon, Espial’s paper focuses on how digital transformation is permitting businesses to deliver on the values of convenience, quality, and cost. Digital transformation is having the same disruptive impact on the payTV industry, offering consumers convenience, quality and value with disruptive cost points. Espial’s paper focuses on the business of video services and reviews the potential impact of digital transformation to permit operators to truly innovate, compete, and differentiate in payTV. The paper emphasizes that operators need to bring themselves outside of a mindset that discourages innovation by prioritizing marginal costs, and outlines actionable insights for operators to take advantage of the new realities of the video industry and build a sustainable, predictable business – economically and at low risk.

Michael McCluskey, VP of Product Management at Espial, said:

“Operators are constantly exposed to the business realities of increasing content costs and new OTT competition for video services. This has led many to believe that de-emphasizing video is their ticket to survival and profitability. If we take a closer look, we see that the market for video is not contracting at all – rather it is growing and represents a vast opportunity for operators. But operators cannot take advantage of this opportunity by doing more of what they do today – they need to understand what subscribers want and how to deliver this in a highly cost-efficient manner.”

Among the highlights, Espial’s vision paper emphasizes how operators can:

• become significantly more customer-centric in the video service offer.
• completely transform how to reach, acquire, and on-board consumers.
• slow the rate of subscriber-churn and cord-shaving, and monetize their services.
• embrace SaaS solutions to deliver with fast time to revenue, low up-front costs, and low investment risk.
• take advantage of strategic opportunities which open them up to new services, leading to subscriber acquisition and retention.

Candice Mayberry Storsveen from HBC, said:

“HBC strives to offer the latest in advanced technology to our customers. It is important to us that all the services we offer are market desired, cost effective, and user friendly. The industry is moving quickly, customers have many options, and we are challenged to keep pace. By continuing to offer innovative video solutions, we are able to serve our customers the best in-home entertainment experience.”

The full paper can be found on the Espial website at https://espial.com/resource/vision-paper-espial/.

About EspialEspial is a public software company, established in 1997 and is headquartered in Ottawa. With its long history in providing video solutions across 50 million devices, it is a leader in the video delivery industry. Espial solutions are used by over 50 video service providers across US, Canada, Europe & Asia. Espial’s flagship Elevate, is a complete IPTV solution hosted in the cloud with a unique approach towards the operator business model – TvaaS or TV as a service. It has partnered with leading companies like Netflix, Amazon and Google among others for its Elevate SaaS solution. Elevate is successfully deployed to over 40 customers across US and Canada. For more information on Espial’s solutions, visit www.espial.com and for more details on Espial’s Elevate solution visit www.espial.com/elevate.

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