The History Of CTV And OTT

The Evolution of CTV and OTT

Sharing cherished memories of going to your neighborhood Blockbuster every weekend is a surefire way to show your age. The emergence of Netflix and its part in forcing Blockbuster out of business in 2007 is frequently credited with the birth of CTV. But there’s more to it if you want to delve a little deeper into the history of digital streaming.

TiVo operated in order for Netflix to run

TiVo introduced a digital video recorder (DVR) in 1999, allowing customers to record, pause, and fast-forward through their favorite television shows. This resulted in the development of set-top boxes, which were adopted by all television networks by 2009.

PCs and the internet were much more widely available in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this period, the first concert (by Severe Tire Damage) and the first baseball game (Yankees vs. Mariners) were streamed live on the internet.

Streaming arrived in a flash

Adobe Flash soon after cleared the path for video streaming via video-hosting websites. YouTube was founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, and was powered by Flash Player at the time. They provided 30,000 views each day in only a few months and surpassed 25 million just a year later.

READ MORE: CTV Watching Hours Increase By 21%

The beginning of the streaming wars

The streaming wars began in 2019, at the tail end of the so-called second golden age of television and the post-network era. This period saw a massive behavioral shift from traditional cable viewers to cord-cutters, leading a rush of networks promoting video-streaming services to deliver exclusive video content, combat piracy, and, most obviously, sell ad space.

Then there were the advertisements

As the popularity of streaming subscriptions grew, marketers were keen to get on board. Significant advancements in programmatic advertising have made the automation of buying and selling ad placements on streaming platforms easier and more successful than before.