AI. It's impossible to ignore. But how can TV Service Providers use it effectively to help streamline operations, protect against churn, or monetize?
It’s almost impossible to avoid the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - or it's promotion as the solution for everything. Capitalizing on this growth, a new type of consultant has emerged to help you use AI to solve all your challenges. While there is certainly a place for AI in the toolset, it’s not the panacea many of these consultants proclaim – at least for now.
That said, it's interesting to think through how Pay TV Providers could leverage AI in various ways to enhance operations, improve customer experiences, and create new revenue opportunities.
Content: Recommendations, Optimization, Monetization
Personalized Content Recommendations: AI can analyze viewers' watching habits, preferences, and behavior to provide personalized content recommendations. By using machine learning algorithms, pay TV providers can curate and suggest shows, movies, and live events that individual viewers are likely to enjoy, enhancing user engagement and satisfaction. Like many content search and recommendations engines before it, the challenge here is how to identify the user on a shared device to provide the best recommendations, as well as the most streamlined (read “not annoying”) way to have them self identify. And – what if multiple users are watching together?
Content Optimization and Scheduling: AI can assist in content management by analyzing viewing trends and predicting audience preferences. This information can be used to optimize programming schedules, select the right content to purchase or produce, and determine the best times to air certain shows or movies to maximize viewership. While straightforward as an explanation, this use cases touches quite a few complex and related systems that would be difficult to streamline in this way – at least quickly.
Advanced Advertising: AI can optimize advertising by ensuring that ads are targeted and relevant to the specific viewer. By analyzing viewer data, AI can help in delivering addressable advertising that matches the interests and preferences of individual viewers or specific demographic groups, increasing ad effectiveness and revenue potential. But, like search and recommendation, the challenge here is how to identify the user, or group of users.
Customer Experience: Improve It and Reduce Churn
Increased Service Reliability: AI/ML could be used to determine service quality and help to isolate any service impacting issues. This can help improve overall reliability as well as reduce churn. In a few examples from larger service providers, we determined that a customer experiencing a single issue over a period is likely not to churn, but when multiple issues are experienced, the satisfaction drops dramatically and churn propensity increases. If done right, this application of AI/ML is a game changer.
Customer Service and Support: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide 24/7 customer support, answering common queries, solving basic issues, and improving overall customer service efficiency. This can reduce wait times and free up human customer service representatives to handle more complex issues. Done well, this is a game-changer.
Network Optimization and Maintenance: AI can monitor network performance in real-time, predict potential issues, and automate routine maintenance tasks. This proactive approach can lead to more reliable service delivery, fewer outages, and improved overall network performance.
Churn Prediction and Customer Retention: By analyzing customer data, AI can identify patterns and signals that a customer is likely to cancel their service. This enables pay TV providers to proactively address customer concerns, offer personalized incentives to stay, and ultimately reduce churn rates.
Across the Board Improvements: Fraud, OpEx, Optimization
Fraud Detection: AI can be used to detect and prevent fraudulent activities, such as unauthorized account access or content piracy. By continuously analyzing data patterns, AI systems can identify unusual activities and take preemptive actions to protect the provider and its customers.
Operational Efficiency: AI can streamline various operational processes, from billing and account management to content delivery and resource allocation. This can lead to cost savings, faster response times, and improved service quality.
Content Creation and Enhancement: AI technologies like machine learning and computer vision can be used to enhance content quality, for example, by upscaling video resolution, improving sound quality, or even creating personalized content highlights for viewers.
Market Analysis and Strategic Planning: AI can analyze market trends, customer feedback, and competitive dynamics to provide insights for strategic decision-making. This can help pay TV providers adapt to changing market conditions, innovate their service offerings, and stay competitive.
By leveraging AI, TV service providers can transform their service delivery, operational efficiency, and customer engagement, leading to improved service quality, increased viewer loyalty, and higher revenue opportunities. Many of these projects are in progress at some operators and may seem simple, but it is easy to be led astray by AI solutions without enough forethought. AI is not a substitute for common sense, industry experience, network knowledge, or hard work. It is, however, a useful tool when used strategically to drive valuable outcomes.
