Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming at DVinfo.net

Steven Davis · June 8th, 2017, 01:52 PM

I was wondering if we could get a Sticky on this topic for Pay Per View Streaming services. I have a client that is looking to host online classes via pay per view.

A sticky would be nice so everyone here could pipe in on experience with different services.

Chris Harding · June 11th, 2017, 01:02 AM

Hi Steven

That would be great .. I know that Livestream is out of our budget as the only package that does Pay-per-View is their top one and that is "by quote" the middle package is $3000 a year and their basic package is $500 so I figure you would have to have a pretty substantial client base who want PPV if you can afford their Enterprise package

It would be neat to know if other CDN's do a PPV at an affordable price!!

Bruce Dempsey · June 11th, 2017, 05:48 AM

I've used a wordpress plugin for pay per view and did it myself.
Wasn't too hard to set it up with pay pal
It is worth noting that generally folks expect to not pay when watching stuff on the Internet and are totally unforgiving of any buffering, stuttering, and the other picture issues which can arise whilst live streaming.
I've live streamed a bunch of regional figureskating competitions with a pay per view componenent and nothing will enrage a grandmother more than to have her grand daughter's performance be interrupted by buffering or whatever. They will bombard you with hate if you screw up even the littlest bit.
When I find a sponsor for the video livestreaming to pay me for ads inserted I'd get a thousand, mabe 2000 or more unique visitors over the course of a 2 day competition however using pay per view the number drops to 50 or so.
Only a small fraction of your potential audience will pay regardless of the cost. I experimented with $7.00 and $25.00 . Didn't seem to matter

Josh Chesarek · June 11th, 2017, 06:51 AM

I have had similar luck in terms of doing pay per view. My main streaming is college sports so we have a pretty captive audience there but when a team had a free game or was in a game you were not allowed to charge for the viewership was more than double the usual amount. We did a number of random season games to see the doubling so it wasn't just because we were in the tournament for those. Sponsors love numbers and when the stream is free you get numbers. What we really worked on was a call to action. They need to feel the support and value from a sponsorship so we made sure we talked about the sponsors on air a lot. For the food ones we would also try and setup a dinner at the sponsors or have them cater a game or something. Get good at analytics. Being able to show where your viewers are at and how long they are watching are key. I also got to the point where I would note the time that we ran a sponsor video or promo and count the number of live viewers by segments watched during that portion I could then confidently tell them how many people/devices were watching during their ad as well as where they were at.

In terms of charging one thing I tried that did fairly well but I haven't had many chances to use it is the donation method with a benefit. In other words we stream live for free but its limited to 480p or something similar. If you donate at least $1 or more it will activate HD. We even did one event where we put out two streams and the donation stream would stay on the live feed when we cut to breaks etc. Most people would also do the suggested donation of $5 rather than change it down to the minimum $1. I asked a few people in passing if this was just because they didn't realize they could adjust it and all but one said no, they thought it the production was worth the donation and they got HD out of it so they were happy.

As for how I do Pay per view etc. I do a stripe/paypal gateway and then based on the response (payment) i give them a cookie and link that pulls the HD/pay stream. I use a CDN with URL signing so they have to visit my site and get a url that is linked to their current IP and session. If they send it to someone else they get an error since the link wasn't generated for them. I have seen lots of WordPress plugins that do exactly what I did and it would probably easier and faster to use one of those vs. what I did manually.

Steven Davis · June 11th, 2017, 06:31 PM

I pitched an online class on demand idea to my client. They liked the idea. It definitely saves on DVDs lol.

This is great information, what a great resource is the wisdom from everyone.

Steven Digges · June 16th, 2017, 01:14 AM

Josh, I can't thank you enough for a post like that. That is exactly why I love this forum so much. Professionals informing other professionals about their experience in the real world. THANK YOU!!!!!!

Kind Regards,

Steve

June 8th, 2017, 01:52 PM	#1
Steven Davis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Richmond, VA Posts: 3,065	Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming I was wondering if we could get a Sticky on this topic for Pay Per View Streaming services. I have a client that is looking to host online classes via pay per view. A sticky would be nice so everyone here could pipe in on experience with different services. __________________ What happens if I push the 'Red' button?

June 11th, 2017, 01:02 AM	#2
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming Hi Steven That would be great .. I know that Livestream is out of our budget as the only package that does Pay-per-View is their top one and that is "by quote" the middle package is $3000 a year and their basic package is $500 so I figure you would have to have a pretty substantial client base who want PPV if you can afford their Enterprise package It would be neat to know if other CDN's do a PPV at an affordable price!!

June 11th, 2017, 05:48 AM	#3
Bruce Dempsey Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Atlantic Coast Canada Posts: 599	Re: Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming I've used a wordpress plugin for pay per view and did it myself. Wasn't too hard to set it up with pay pal It is worth noting that generally folks expect to not pay when watching stuff on the Internet and are totally unforgiving of any buffering, stuttering, and the other picture issues which can arise whilst live streaming. I've live streamed a bunch of regional figureskating competitions with a pay per view componenent and nothing will enrage a grandmother more than to have her grand daughter's performance be interrupted by buffering or whatever. They will bombard you with hate if you screw up even the littlest bit. When I find a sponsor for the video livestreaming to pay me for ads inserted I'd get a thousand, mabe 2000 or more unique visitors over the course of a 2 day competition however using pay per view the number drops to 50 or so. Only a small fraction of your potential audience will pay regardless of the cost. I experimented with $7.00 and $25.00 . Didn't seem to matter

June 11th, 2017, 06:51 AM	#4
Josh Chesarek Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Winter Park, FL Posts: 978	Re: Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming I have had similar luck in terms of doing pay per view. My main streaming is college sports so we have a pretty captive audience there but when a team had a free game or was in a game you were not allowed to charge for the viewership was more than double the usual amount. We did a number of random season games to see the doubling so it wasn't just because we were in the tournament for those. Sponsors love numbers and when the stream is free you get numbers. What we really worked on was a call to action. They need to feel the support and value from a sponsorship so we made sure we talked about the sponsors on air a lot. For the food ones we would also try and setup a dinner at the sponsors or have them cater a game or something. Get good at analytics. Being able to show where your viewers are at and how long they are watching are key. I also got to the point where I would note the time that we ran a sponsor video or promo and count the number of live viewers by segments watched during that portion I could then confidently tell them how many people/devices were watching during their ad as well as where they were at. In terms of charging one thing I tried that did fairly well but I haven't had many chances to use it is the donation method with a benefit. In other words we stream live for free but its limited to 480p or something similar. If you donate at least $1 or more it will activate HD. We even did one event where we put out two streams and the donation stream would stay on the live feed when we cut to breaks etc. Most people would also do the suggested donation of $5 rather than change it down to the minimum $1. I asked a few people in passing if this was just because they didn't realize they could adjust it and all but one said no, they thought it the production was worth the donation and they got HD out of it so they were happy. As for how I do Pay per view etc. I do a stripe/paypal gateway and then based on the response (payment) i give them a cookie and link that pulls the HD/pay stream. I use a CDN with URL signing so they have to visit my site and get a url that is linked to their current IP and session. If they send it to someone else they get an error since the link wasn't generated for them. I have seen lots of WordPress plugins that do exactly what I did and it would probably easier and faster to use one of those vs. what I did manually. __________________ Simple Thought Productions - Life @ 30,000 Words per second

June 11th, 2017, 06:31 PM	#5
Steven Davis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Richmond, VA Posts: 3,065	Re: Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming I pitched an online class on demand idea to my client. They liked the idea. It definitely saves on DVDs lol. This is great information, what a great resource is the wisdom from everyone. __________________ What happens if I push the 'Red' button?

June 16th, 2017, 01:14 AM	#6
Steven Digges Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 1,828	Re: Sticky for Pay Per View Streaming Josh, I can't thank you enough for a post like that. That is exactly why I love this forum so much. Professionals informing other professionals about their experience in the real world. THANK YOU!!!!!! Kind Regards, Steve __________________ www.CorporateShow.com Been at this so long I'm rounding my years of experience down...not up!