How many streamers can you name? Five, ten… 15? There are more than 300 streaming video content providers in the US alone. No wonder there’s a battle for the small screen.
Streaming media consultant Peggy Dau serves up that juicy statistic in a conversation with director/producer Amy DeLouise in a special Executive Leadership Series video, “I Want it All – Streaming, Pay TV and the Future of Story Delivery.”
Picking up the conversation started at the 2020 NAB Show Executive Leadership Summit, the pair deliver unique perspectives on where the industry should be headed next and how today’s story creators and distributors can position themselves to be ready in an even more competitive market.
“Everybody has become a content creator and streamer,” says DeLouise who cites the multiplicity of non-profit and arts and entertainment organizations now professionally producing content online. “That won’t change post-COVID. For many it will be a new strand of revenue generation.”
Dau, who is undertaking a study into what consumers want for a pay TV operator, says content costs are skyrocketing. Netflix is predicted to spend $19 billion in 2021 alone. Disney has more than 100 original series and features on its books costing north of $15 billion by 2024.
But it’s not just video.
“Podcasts were exploding pre-COVID and now there are 85,000 active pods and 13 million episodes available, some generating enormous interest and revenue base,” Dau said.
Linear TV as a service is shrinking while streaming grows but TV as a device is still hugely valuable.
Industry analyst Brett Sappington, who leads the video and entertainment research practice at global insights firm Interpret, chats about the evolution of streaming and its impact on the pay-TV model on the Light Reading podcast with senior editor Jeff Baumgartner.
“Before you would ever get to a subscriber floor, I think [the pay-TV industry] fundamentally has to change… to make the economics work,” Sappington comments. “We’re really looking at a pretty significant shift in how pay-TV works in the next few years just to make the economics work out.”
Listen to the full conversation in the audio player below:
“Consumer love that the TV a connected device. They can get to linear channels and streaming content,” Dau said.
Other topics covered in the video include remote production and the impact this technology has had on democratizing production of content at high quality.
For those still counting up the 300+ streaming platforms, most of them are serving niche audiences but still turning a profit. Among them is BroadwayHD, which does as the name suggests and delivers an archive of filmed theatre to your armchair, Crunchyroll for anime and manga, and faith-based network Pure Flix. The latter two have both recently been acquired by Sony.
