On-Demand and Live Streaming

On-Demand and Live Streaming

For the past years we have been noticing changes within the media industry, we see the media falling into the long list of industries disrupted by the ever changing technological features and transitions to more digital content formats. The increase in number of user subscriptions to devices supporting digital media has become evident looking at the research by Business Insider outlining that subscription video on demand still stands for an explosive growth over the next 5 years due to increased mobile adoption, amplified broadband expansion and enhanced purchasing power.

Competition and Profitability

Threat of new entrants comes into play when late movers notice growth potential. Netflix has held much power in this industry for the longest time as the leading service provider followed by Amazon, but competition is seemingly becoming intense with players such as DSTV (cable tv) catching up and introducing its own on-demand options. Traditional TV viewing is becoming outdated and is slowing down.

Service providers across the globe are attempting to maximize profits by adding value to their traditional subscription model and are starting to develop and offer premium content that is rather niche focused and exclusive provided that the users pay more, this grants viewers the luxury to watch shows of their choice at their own pace.

Global trends show that even though a lot of me toos have started following suit, this doesn’t put the early movers at a disadvantage as research shows that at the moment Netflix is seemingly still uninterrupted on its industry dominance as predictions show that their stock increase is projected to go up by 17% is 2017 alone. YouTube as well continues to grow and even higher growth is still expected in emerging markets. The Asia-Pacific region music industry is said to have reached 450 million in 2014 and still expected to reach and exceed 2 billion by 2020.

For the longest time, TV was leading in content consumption but because of stronger internet connections and easy internet access, more and more time is being spent consuming digital content and research shows that smart mobile users are especially driving this trend as smartphones are said to be the prefered medium of consumption for on-demand content. Smart mobile usage growth has crossed the 2 billion mark in 2014 and expected to reach 4.6 billion by 2019. These trends are proving that on-demand subscription will as well continue to rise.TV content producers are however not taking matters lying down as TV viewership is currently opening ways to the new segment of customers who are choosing to consume multimedia content on-demand and as a result video traffic consumption has increased.

How on-demand has affected Live Stream

According to research, by 2016 alone over 186 million people were further turning to apps or websites like Youtube and Vimeo to watch videos. Evidently this is a win for both service providers and viewers as we notice viewers shifting to subscription video-on demand and this simply means service providers such as Netflix and Youtube have now become top of the mind for consumers as they now choose binge watching series and movies.

After exploring this trend we discover that TV programming makers and advertisers need to adapt and step up their game and match up to the expectations of the modern consumer that has greater influences in society. Like any other segment, even this industry consists of early adopters who play a huge role in being social influencers and most have lead the way for the world to follow. The choice to step up for service providers determines their long term sustainability and according to Tech Rador on-demand consumption is becoming a new habit that no one can deny and as for early movers, they may be in a favourable position now but ongoing production of fresh content and continuous innovative ways to cater for their market is crucial for them to remain at those positions.