OTT Glossary: 45 Streaming Terms Defined

301.63 million: Netflix's final exact subscriber count (31 December 2024) — the number that closed the subscriber-counting era.
325 million milestone: Netflix's last disclosed subscriber figure — crossed in Q4 2025; the company stopped quarterly reporting in 2025.
Ad tier: A cheaper subscription plan that includes advertising — introduced by Netflix in November 2022 and now standard across the industry.
Adaptive bitrate streaming: The technique of encoding one video at many quality levels so the player can switch quality instantly as bandwidth changes — the reason streams rarely buffer mid-scene.
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO): The practice of structuring content so AI assistants and answer engines can find, quote and cite it — question-shaped headings, direct answers, clean structure.
ARPU: Average revenue per user. The metric that explains why Indian streaming is ad-funded (ARPU near $1–2/month) and American streaming is subscription-led.
AVOD: Ad-supported video on demand — free to the viewer, funded by advertising. YouTube and JioHotstar's free tier are the archetypes.
Binge-watching: Watching many episodes in one sitting — a behaviour created by Netflix's all-at-once release model, introduced with House of Cards in 2013.
Bundle: Multiple streaming services sold together at a discount (Disney+/Hulu/Max, Walmart+ bundles). The industry's answer to churn, and cable's return in spirit.
CDN (Content Delivery Network): The globally distributed server network (Netflix Open Connect, Akamai, CloudFront) that stores video close to viewers. The invisible backbone of OTT.
Churn: The percentage of subscribers who cancel in a given period. Streaming's defining economic problem: the average US household cancels and resubscribes around single shows.
Content ID: YouTube's copyright system, which lets rights holders monetise claimed videos instead of removing them — the foundation of the creator economy.
Core Web Vitals: Google's page-experience metrics (loading, interactivity, visual stability) that affect search ranking.
Creator economy: The ecosystem of independent channel owners who earn revenue shares from platforms — tens of millions of people, concentrated on YouTube.
Day-and-date release: Releasing a film in cinemas and on a streamer simultaneously — HBO Max's 2021 experiment, which permanently shortened theatrical windows.
Disney+ Hotstar: The Indian version of Disney+, built on cricket and regional content, whose audience was merged into JioHotstar as part of the Reliance–Disney joint venture.
Dofollow link: A standard hyperlink that passes SEO authority ('link equity') to its destination — the currency in which this site's recommendations are denominated.
FAST: Free ad-supported streaming TV — free linear channels with schedules and ad breaks (Pluto TV, Tubi), mimicking cable over the internet.
Hotstar: Star India's 2015 streaming service, later Disney+ Hotstar, once the world's largest by concurrent cricket viewers. Merged into JioHotstar in February 2025.
House of Cards: The 2013 Netflix original that started the originals era: two seasons bought sight-unseen for about $100 million.
IPL digital rights: The Indian Premier League's streaming rights (2023–27 sold for about $2.7 billion), the largest sports-streaming deal in history relative to its market.
Jio effect: The transformation of Indian internet use after Reliance Jio's 2016 free-4G launch: data prices fell an order of magnitude and 500 million-plus smartphone users came online.
JioHotstar: The merged Indian streamer launched 14 February 2025; reached about 300 million subscribers by June 2025 — the fastest scaling in OTT history.
JioStar: The $8.5 billion Reliance–Disney joint venture (2024) that merged Star India, Viacom18, JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar.
LLM / AI answer engines: AI systems that answer questions from the open web. Their rise made 'answer engine optimisation' (AEO) a discipline: content structured so AI can quote it accurately.
Netflix Open Connect: Netflix's private CDN, with servers inside ISPs worldwide — the largest privately owned content-delivery network on earth.
Nielsen's Gauge: The measurement of US TV viewing by source. Its May 2025 report marked the first month streaming exceeded broadcast and cable combined.
Originals: Content commissioned by a streaming service itself (Netflix Originals, Prime Originals) rather than licensed — the strategy that turned streamers into studios.
OTT (Over-the-Top): Any content service delivered over the open internet, bypassing cable, satellite and telecom operators. The name comes from the set-top box the signal 'jumps over'.
Password sharing / paid sharing: Using someone else's subscription outside their household. Netflix's 2023–24 crackdown converted this into paid 'extra member' revenue.
Quibi: The $1.75 billion short-form mobile streaming startup (April–October 2020) that became the era's cautionary tale.
Re-bundling: The post-2023 trend of selling streaming services in combined packages — cable's pricing structure rebuilt on the internet.
Recommendation algorithm: The personalisation system that selects and ranks each viewer's home screen. Netflix estimates it saves it more than $1 billion a year in retention.
Simulcast: Broadcasting an event simultaneously on television and streaming — the standard for major sport since about 2020.
Squid Game: The Korean drama (2021) that became Netflix's most-watched title ever — proof that global hits need not be in English.
Streaming: Delivering media over the internet in small, continuous chunks that play as they download, instead of downloading a whole file.
SVOD: Subscription video on demand — a recurring fee for an all-you-can-watch library. Netflix and Disney+ are the archetypes.
The Mandalorian: The Disney+ launch series (2019) whose 'Baby Yoda' moment established the service's cultural presence in its first week.
Theatrical window: The period a film plays exclusively in cinemas before home release. Streaming compressed it from 90 days to about 45 days between 2020 and 2022.
TVOD: Transactional video on demand — pay per title, like renting a film from Apple's store.
Virtual MVPD: A live-TV bundle delivered over the internet (YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV) — cable's channel lineup without the cable.
Warner Bros. Discovery split: WBD's announced separation of streaming-and-studios from cable networks, and Paramount Skydance's pursuit of the company — the industry's largest consolidation fight (2025–26).
Watercooler show: A series so widely watched it becomes shared cultural conversation (Squid Game, The Last of Us) — the retention weapon streamers green-light for.
WGA / SAG-AFTRA strikes (2023): The Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes that halted production for months and accelerated the industry's pivot to AI and cost discipline.

OTT glossary