Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

2020 A milestone year for many across the streaming landscape

04/03/2020

-- --

The streaming media industry is now entering a new era, as major launches and acquisitions carve out a global landscape for 2020 and beyond. US Direct-to-Consumer launches in the spring NBCUniversal's Peacock and Warner Media's HBO Max will join recent newcomers AppleTV and Disney , along with industry veterans Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, to bring even more choice to consumers. Peacock will initially only be available to Xfinity customers, before a full launch in July. Warner Media's HBO Max will also roll out into Latin America later in the year, followed by some European countries in 2021, bringing a wealth of new content.

Across the wider streaming market there is a real land grab sweeping across this landscape by the various media players, examples of these collaborations, mergers and acquisitions include Universal and Xumo, the purchase of Pluto TV by ViacomCBS, Fox is now rumoured to be buying Tubi, however this is not the bit sold to Disney, this still belongs to Murdock. NBCUniversal is in talks to buy Vudu, which also offers AVod. Rakuten is launching AVOD, on top of Amazon's IMBDTV. We saw Sony selling its majority stake of streaming service Crackle. Warner Media's Crunchyroll is also available on Roku channels. Meanwhile in the UK, BritBox, the BBC and the ITV joint venture continues to extend its reach, with its UK launch in late 2019 joining the party behind the USA and Canada. Then there's DAZN, providing a sports subscription streaming service across Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Canada the USA, Italy, Spain and Brazil, with more country launches likely in the future and the list will just continue.

A Renaissance for Content Producers

In the USA alone, Futuresource forecasts show that consumer spend on SVoD (Subscription Video on Demand) will rise to more than $20 billion in 2020, exceeding transactional home video and box office combined. Moving forward, SVoD will see a 16% average annual increase over the next five years. Conversely, Pay-TV is in slow decline in the USA, yielding to downward pressure from a combination of competition from SVoD, Pay-TV operators focusing on broadband access, and a lower-than-expected uptake of Pay-TV lite/MVPD services.

Amid this SVoD upsurge, content producers are enjoying a renaissance, with an abundance of premium content being created for an ever-expanding raft of services across a wide range of genres. For studios and broadcasters alike, this provides the opportunity to go direct-to-consumer with a targeted offering. However, it's a big departure from established business models and the high rewards are not without their risks. How many services is too many? Will consumers become more susceptible to churn? Could the widespread availability of free trials create a culture of service hopping? Despite all the opportunity, churn management will come to the fore, as content producers evaluate their long-range strategies, with super aggregation a priority for leading platforms and tech companies.

Maturing Markets and Continued Fragmentation

In this new world of content choice, service stacking could become commonplace for consumers, with households regularly churning in and out of services, as they become increasingly media savvy and weigh up the cumulative costs of taking multiple services. As an example, around one-third of current and previous Netflix subscribers in the USA and key European markets cancelled their service and restarted last year, over half of them doing it more than once.

As viewing behaviour matures in many countries across the globe, consumption is fragmenting across SVoD, AVoD (Advertising Funded Video on Demand) platforms, such as YouTube, BVoD (Broadcaster Video on Demand) platforms, such as BBC iPlayer and transactional digital video, as it continues to make steady in-roads. How these new services will fit in with the wider viewing mix of free traditional TV, Pay-TV, transactional video and newer AVoD services, such as Pluto TV, has yet to play out.

Power Shifting and Finding that Right Balance

These new services each have their individual strengths and will be appealing to many, yet central to their long-term successes will not only be adding new subscribers but retaining existing customers as well. UX (user experience) design will play a leading role in customer retention. Alongside breadth of content, great UX provides a seamless customer journey through the content, aiding engagement, search, navigation and discovery. UX walks a challenging path between placing the brand front and centre and fading into the background to let the content come into focus and do the talking. This combination of powerful content and clear content visibility will prove more important than ever in 2020. As a result, super aggregators and content providers that operate at scale will become more relevant, yet they will still require platforms with strong customer bases to help drive and maintain subscriber numbers. Although the time is right for direct-to-consumer, it can never thrive on its own and will always require a backbone of hardware, platform, brand tie-ins and positioning to reach out with impact and enable a strong and sustainable customer experience.

Facebook

Twitter

Google

Pinterest

-- --
LINK: https://www.screenafrica.com/2020/03/04/tv-radio/business-tv-radio/202...
See more stories from screenafrica

Most recent headlines

04/09/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Dalet Win Prestigious 2025 NAB Show Project of the Year Award

Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...

27/04/2025

A Tribute to Bruce Logan, Written By Steve Weiss

It's with deep regret that we share the passing of our dear friend Bruce Logan, ASC. Bruce was not just a collaborator-he was family. He worked with us at ...

26/04/2025

Samsung Ads Launches New Interactive Ad Format

NEW YORK Samsung Ads has debuted a new interactive advertising format, Creative Canvas, that helps automate and deliver interactive ads....

26/04/2025

Sinclair Names Vincent J. Sollecito VP/GM of WPEC

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. Sinclair has appointed Vincent J. Sollecito vice president and general manager of WPEC, serving the West Palm Beach, Florida market....

26/04/2025

Comcast Technology Solutions, AD-ID Join Forces to Advance Ad Standards

NEW YORK and DENVER AD-ID and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) have announced that they are working together to promote the adoption of industry standards in ...

26/04/2025

Cobalt Scores a Trifecta of Awards at NAB 2025

Cobalt Scores a Trifecta of Awards at NAB 2025 Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments Company adds another Best of Show and two Product of the Year tr...

26/04/2025

FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2025 entries

FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2025 entries Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments Entries open from 1 May 31 July to colourists on any grading pl...

26/04/2025

Blackmagic's Latest Products - Larry Jordan Guest Spots with Dan May at NAB Las Vegas 2025

Blackmagic's Latest Products - Larry Jordan Guest Spots with Dan May at NAB ...

25/04/2025

The Legend of Ochi Takes Families on an Adventure

Emily Watson, Isaiah Saxon, Helena Zengel, and Finn Wolfhard at The Legend of Ochi premiere (photo by Soul Brother/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...

25/04/2025

Interoperability and Networked Electronic Warfare: Critical for the Modern Warfighter

Using its CORVUS portfolio, L3Harris created a highly adaptable battle network t...

25/04/2025

Agile Content and Tiscali team up to launch the tv service Linkem My TI-VI in Italy Agile TV

Agile Content joins forces with Tiscali to introduce a new platform in Italy, of...

25/04/2025

Agile Content is Now AgileTV Agile TV

The company positions Agile TV as the commercial brand focused on delivering TVaaS solutions for operators and media. The chosen tagline TVaaS your way enca...

25/04/2025

Agile TV, United Teleports, and BNS Launch a More Profitable, Hassle-Free TV Service Agile TV

A Fully Managed Solution That Maximizes Revenue for North American Operators Whi...

25/04/2025

Former Morgan Murphy Media CEO Elizabeth Murphy Burns Has Died

Morgan Murphy Media has issued the following obituary for its former CEO:...

25/04/2025

FEMA Lifts Its Hold on Warning System Grants

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has lifted its hold on grant money for some public broadcast stations to upgrade their infrastructure....

25/04/2025

Enhance Videos 80% Faster & Fix Format Issues with VideoProc - Major Update

Enhance Videos 80% Faster & Fix Format Issues with VideoProc - Major Update Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments VideoProc Converter AI just got a m...

25/04/2025

Listen to Kim Perlak and Francisco Mela's New Album, Recorded in a Single Afternoon

Listen to Kim Perlak and Francisco Mela's New Album, Recorded in a Single Af...

25/04/2025

YouTube Turns 20, Celebrates 20 Trillion Uploaded Videos

YouTube is celebrating its 20th birthday with stats showing how popular the platform has become and by announcing some new features, including the ability for u...

25/04/2025

Sinclair's Dave Schwartz, Corporate SVP/Station Operations, to Retire

BALTIMORE Sinclair, Inc. has announced the retirement of Dave Schwartz, its corporate senior vice president/station operations, effective June 30....

25/04/2025

SBE Releases Updated CertPreview Practice Exams

The Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) has released its popular CertPreview practice exams in a new, online format. SBE CertPreview allows people preparing to...

25/04/2025

Dallas Wings Expand OTA Reach with Tegna, Gray and Corridor Deals

ARLINGTON, Texas Two months after naming Tegna station KFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth its exclusive local broadcast partner for WNBA games, the Dallas Wings are expa...

25/04/2025

AMG's Local Now Launches on Vizio's WatchFree+

LOS ANGELES, Calif. Allen Media Group has announced that all 223 U.S. Markets covered by its Local Now FAST Channel are now available on the Vizio WatchFree+ st...

25/04/2025

Working with Shutterstock's AI Editor to Create Unique Images

Working with Shutterstock's AI Editor to Create Unique Images Brie Clayton April 25, 2025 0 Comments What's better than a stock image source? ...

25/04/2025

VEON Files its 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F

25 Apr 2025 VEON Files its 2024 Annual Report on Form 20-F Dubai, April 25, 2025: VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital operator ( VEON' or the Compa...

25/04/2025

Super Bowl Streaming Success: A Conversation with Tubi's Chief Product & Technology Officer Mike Bidgoli

Super Bowl Streaming Success: A Conversation with Tubi's Chief Product & Tec...

25/04/2025

Tariff Turmoil: Trump's Trade Policy Sparks Uncertainty at NAB and Increases Focus on Software Adoption

Tariff Turmoil: Trump's Trade Policy Sparks Uncertainty at NAB and Increases...

25/04/2025

High Kicks and High Stakes: Sky Arts announces new series, The Battle of the Irish Dancers

Friday 25 April 2025 Hot on the heels of the Irish Dancing World Championships ...

25/04/2025

Netflix Announces Release Date and First Look of 'The Thursday Murder Club'

Back to All News Netflix Announces Release Date and First Look of The Thursday ...

25/04/2025

FOR-A Showcases Next-Generation Broadcast Solutions at CABSAT 2025

Connecting the present, building the future FOR-A IMPULSE HVS-Q12 FOR-A MixBoard...

25/04/2025

dB at MPTS 2025

Following last year's successful event, we're back at the Media Production and Technology Show (MPTS) in London this year. As before, we're looking ...

25/04/2025

Thales and Deloitte form Strategic Alliance to Help Enhance Data Protection and Governance Services

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Enhancing Data Protection and Governance Service...

24/04/2025

Film Festival Watch: Catch These 13 Sundance Institute-Supported Films at the 2025 Hot Docs Festival

We're huge fans of shining a spotlight on the documentaries that empower, en...

24/04/2025

Spotify Expands AI Playlist in Beta to Premium Listeners in 40+ New Markets

Playlists have always been at the heart of the Spotify experience. Since AI Playlist in beta launched last year, Premium users have used it to create millions o...

24/04/2025

How Latin Artists Are Thriving Both at Music Festivals and on Spotify

From the California desert and Chicago's Grant Park to New York City's Flushing Meadows Corona Park and beyond, music festivals this spring and summer w...

24/04/2025

82 Artists, 10 Countries, Limitless Sounds: Meet the RADAR Asia Class of 2025

The sounds of Asia are as diverse and vibrant as the continent itself. From the lively beats of Indonesian pop to the gritty rhymes of Pinoy hip-hop, the region...

24/04/2025

L3Harris Technologies Reports First Quarter 2025 Results, Updates 2025 Guidance

Highlights* Revenue of $5.1 billion Operating margin of 10.2%; Adjusted segment operating margin of 15.6% Diluted EPS of $2.04; Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $2.4...

24/04/2025

L3Harris Harnesses Commercial Model to Deliver Capability to Warfighters with Speed and Agility

For more than 50 years, the company's commercial approach to delivering resi...

24/04/2025

Ateliere Acquires Agile Live Software

Century City, Calif. and Bilbao, Spain (July 8, 2024) - Ateliere Creative Technologies, a leading GenAI media software solutions company, and Agile Content, a l...

24/04/2025

AgileTV Showcases TVaaS at IBC 2024

Agile Content to Showcase Industry-Leading TV-as-a-Service Platform at IBC 2024 Bilbao, September 4th - Agile Content, a leading provider of Internet televisio...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & Netorium Boost TVaaS in DACH

Boosting TVaaS in the German-speaking countries with expert integration and 24/7 local support Bilbao/Wiesbaden, September 5th 2024 Agile Content and netorium...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & GlobalDots Revolutionize CDN

New partnership between Agile Content and GlobalDots promises to introduce automated multi-CDN solutions, optimizing content delivery and easing provider manage...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & Agama Boost Streaming at Telenor

Empowering operators with real-time content delivery optimization, improved video quality, and reliable end-to-end service visibility Amsterdam, Netherlands, S...

24/04/2025

Agile Content and Convergenze partner to launch Convergenze TV in Italy Agile TV

Agile Content joins forces with Convergenze to introduce a new platform in Italy, offering a wide range of premium content for all audiences. Bilbao, September...

24/04/2025

AgileTV Earns Bronze EcoVadis Rating

Bilbao, October 10th 2024 - Agile Content, a global provider of PayTV end-to-end solutions, has received the Bronze EcoVadis Sustainability Rating. This ranking...

24/04/2025

MASORANGE & AgileTV Renew Deal

Through this agreement, MASORANGE will incorporate new AGILE CONTENT technologies into its television service, enhancing customer experience with optimum servic...

24/04/2025

AgileTV Reports Q3 Growth

The company reports positive results in the third quarter, despite ending the first half of 2024 with an 8.8% decline in revenue and an 18.3% drop in EBITDA com...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & Tiscali Launch Linkem My TI-VI

Agile Content joins forces with Tiscali to introduce a new platform in Italy, offering a wide range of premium content for all audiences. Bilbao, November 26,...

24/04/2025

Agile Content Rebrands to AgileTV

The company positions Agile TV as the commercial brand focused on delivering TVaaS solutions for operators and media. The chosen tagline TVaaS your way enca...

24/04/2025

AgileTV, BNS & Teleports Launch TV Service

A Fully Managed Solution That Maximizes Revenue for North American Operators While Combining Traditional Cable TV and OTT Apps in one Single Interface. Bilbao,...

24/04/2025

AgileTV & CANAL+ Launch Entertainment Hub

The Entertainment Hub is a fully integrated TV solution that represents a significant step in redefining the white-label TV business model for operators across ...