OTT platform migration challenges often come from how closely content, accounts, apps and launch timelines depend on one another. Here’s how to keep them coordinated.
The Leyra Team
Most streaming operators switching to a new OTT provider already know the individual tasks involved: content has to move, user accounts have to transfer, and apps need to be resubmitted to app stores.
What is less obvious is how closely these tasks depend on each other, and how much they need to land in the right order. A metadata mapping issue discovered late can push back testing. A slow app store review can change the date a service can safely cut over user accounts.
This is usually where the avoidable friction comes from: workstreams run separately, each with its own owner and timeline. Bringing them together under one coordinated plan, with a single timeline everyone is working to, is usually enough to resolve it before customers ever notice.
So what are the top challenges, and what can you do about them?
The content migration challenge
Video content is the backbone of your service, and usually the largest part of a migration. It can also block subsequent tasks: without a migrated video catalogue, you cannot set up your full user experience, test playback, or test entitlements.
Video migration can involve significant manual work, depending on which platforms are involved. Where source files are still available, re-transcoding from source generally produces cleaner output than reusing existing multi-bitrate renditions, especially for any big-screen app being added.
Metadata deserves the same attention as the video itself. Fields, availability windows and territory rights all need to map cleanly into the new platform's data model, and gaps often only surface once someone looks for them. Thumbnail and poster image formats may differ between providers, and producing new images takes time.
How to mitigate the challenge
- Speak to your new OTT platform provider about your video catalogue before onboarding starts, share as much detail as possible, and understand their requirements, such as image sizes, so you can act on them early.
- Be clear about the metadata you require, such as titles, descriptions or genres, and ensure it's migrated to the new platform. If you notice gaps, work with your provider to address them.
- Most importantly, start early. Without your content in the new platform, you can't reliably verify any subsequent steps, so confirm everything is present and correct once migration is done.
The user account migration challenge
The most sensitive part of any migration, from a customer's perspective, is what happens to their account. Once the app is updated, customers expect to log in just as they usually would, and login problems or unexpected changes to entitlements can easily frustrate a user and lead to churn.
One disruptive moment needs to be accepted even when passwords can be migrated: users will need to log back in after updating their app, and many will have forgotten their password. The challenge is to make that moment brief.
Account migration also needs to be handled with care, as mistakes can be costly. Billing and payment gateways need to be updated, subscriptions migrated without disruption, and user data and entitlements kept complete in both the old and new platforms.
How to mitigate the challenge
- Give yourself enough time to analyse any gaps, for example in user data captured, early on, and work with your provider to address these.
- Develop a plan with your OTT provider for how and when to migrate user data. Switchover usually needs to happen in a single step at launch, but you can run test runs with sample data first to verify that authentication, subscriptions and entitlements work as they should.
- Notify users if a password reset or payment method update is required, and give them instructions on how to make the change.
The app design challenge
Your new application provider will have its own management tools, where you can configure the look and feel of your user interface, add content reels, and configure features.
There are two sides to this. On one hand, you gain new features and configuration options that didn't exist on your old platform. On the other hand, you may lose some capabilities you were used to and liked.
During onboarding, familiar features may behave differently and there are new capabilities to learn. The learning curve can feel steep at the beginning, and it's natural to feel frustrated when you notice a difference from what you were used to.
How to mitigate the challenge
- During the purchase process, ask questions about the new platform and its feature set, and arrange a demo environment where possible to familiarise yourself in advance. A good base understanding makes onboarding much smoother.
- Use onboarding to master the feature set thoroughly, so you can deploy it deliberately and turn the switch into a visible improvement for customers. Your onboarding manager can help with this.
- A migration is also a natural point to refresh the look and feel of a service, since brand elements such as colour, logos and typography usually need reconfiguring anyway.
The launch challenge
Once your apps are set up with content, accounts and the user experience in place, it's time to launch. You'll agree the timing with your provider, and the team will work towards it together.
How complex this work is depends somewhat on your setup. If you run an SVOD service, launch coordination needs to be tighter, as the step to migrate user accounts to the new platform needs to be carefully scheduled (see "the account migration challenge").
App store updates for Apple and Android tend to be straightforward, with review times of up to a week. Big-screen apps take longer: Smart TV manufacturers such as Samsung and LG run more involved review processes, meaning a longer lead time before your apps reach production.
There may be a few teething problems to sort out after launch, so it's worth staying alert and ready to react quickly.
How to mitigate the challenge
- Comprehensive end-to-end testing across logins, playback and subscriptions before cutover catches issues that are cheap to fix before launch and expensive to fix afterwards.
- If launching on Smart TV platforms such as Samsung and LG, start those conversations early and work with a partner with an established approval history, which shortens the timeline meaningfully.
- Coordination is key. Work with a provider with a proven track record of coordinating and launching a variety of streaming app constellations, one who can track dependencies and keep you aware of them.
We built Leyra's migration process around that coordination problem specifically. A dedicated migration team runs content, metadata, entitlements and account transfer against a single project plan, with a customer success lead tracking all of it against one timeline.
Customers moving to Leyra have typically completed the full switch within 8-12 weeks, with regular check-ins and close collaboration between their team and Leyra's migration team throughout.
Migrations usually go wrong when several ordinary problems arrive at the same time, without a plan that accounts for how closely they depend on each other.
Still deciding whether a migration is the right move? Read our earlier guide on when to switch OTT platforms, and when staying put may make more sense.
If you are evaluating managed OTT platform vendors, planning a new streaming service, or reviewing whether your current platform can support future growth, book a demo with Leyra. We can talk through your requirements and show you how the platform works.
You can also download the full Leyra feature specifications to review platform capabilities in more detail.
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