AVOD, SVOD and TVOD are the three ways in which a video service is paid for: by advertisers, by a monthly subscription, or by the viewer paying for one piece at a time. AVOD stands for advertising-based video on demand. SVOD stands for subscription video on demand, and TVOD for transactional video on demand. "On demand" means that the viewer chooses what to watch and when. The same three choices apply to music, audio stories, news and games.
Here is how each one works. With AVOD, the viewer pays nothing. The service shows ads before and during the video, and advertisers pay for every thousand times their ad is shown, as explained in impressions and CPM. With SVOD, the viewer pays a fixed fee every month or year and can watch anything in the library. With TVOD, the viewer pays once for one item, such as renting a new film for 48 hours or unlocking one episode. Many services now mix the models. A cheaper plan may show ads, a costlier plan may remove them, and the newest films may be rented on top.
In India, prices are low and many viewers will not pay at all. So ads matter more here than in richer countries, and many Indian services keep a large free tier paid for by ads.
Take, for example, a streaming service that shows live cricket free on phones with ads, and charges a monthly fee to watch on a TV without them.
Consider a micro-drama app. The first episodes are free, and after that the viewer spends a few coins, a kind of virtual currency, to unlock each one-minute episode.
For instance, a news website may let a reader see a few free articles each month with ads, and then ask for a subscription through a paywall.
How are these models different from freemium? Freemium describes software: a basic version is free forever, and a paid plan unlocks more features. AVOD, SVOD and TVOD describe who pays for each piece of media that is watched or heard. A service can use both ideas at once. And a FAST channel is AVOD with a fixed schedule: the viewer does not choose the programme, but joins whatever is playing.
Appears in
- Free-to-play mobile games↗ Video gamesA free-to-play mobile game shows ads to players who never pay, and sells items to those who do.
- Streaming service (OTT)↗ Video streamingA streaming service offers a cheaper plan with ads and a costlier plan without ads, and rents some new films separately.
- Television network↗ Broadcast technologyA television network earns from both sides: viewers pay a monthly channel fee, and advertisers pay for each slot.
- Digital news publisher↗ Digital publishingA digital news publisher shows ads to most readers, and asks loyal readers to pay a subscription for extra stories.
- Audiobook subscription↗ Audio series and audiobooksAn audiobook subscription is paid by the listener every month, with no ads between chapters.