THE STREAMING MOVEMENT CONTINUES TO STREAM UP
WHAT’S GOING ON
As the last 2 Blockbuster stores in Alaska announced their closure last week leaving just one remaining in the entire world based out in Oregan USA, a new range of streaming platforms are ushering a new age of content.
In music, streaming is now the preferred form of consumption. Recent data just released by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) shows that music streaming has now officially taken over as the format of choice in Australia with revenue sales growing from $135.5million in 2016 to $213million in 2017 over taking all other formats. The story is the same in the USA with recently released Nielsen figures revealing that in the first half of 2018, Americans streamed 403 billion songs, almost 100 billion songs more than what they streamed in all of 2015, when streaming accounted for as much as half of US music revenue.
Tech companies are reimagining the streaming experience in new areas with a new wave of creative content with many now focusing on live streaming.
- With its recent IPO, Spotify has begun expanding its streaming services beyond music. Earlier this year, the company announced Spotify Spotlight, which integrates video content into original podcasts alongside audio, most notably Amy Schumer’s 3 Girls, 1 Keith, which launched at the end of June 2018.
- With its success in “stories” which has seen rapid growth and used by 250million people daily, Instagram has just launched IGTV (Instagram TV) which allows users to upload longer form content (up to one hour), going head to head with YouTube.
- Betaworks, an American startup studio and seed stage venture capital company, has just launched an accelerator program focused on supporting companies looking to advance the streaming ecosystem. They are looking for new live-streamed experiences in gaming, sports, entertainment, fitness and much more.
- Peloton, a company known for its popular fitness bike and large library of fitness classes that users can take any time has now started offering live-streamed classes. Members can choose from 15+ daily live studio classes taught by elite NYC instructors.
- Then there is Kanopy, a streaming video on demand service just like Netflix (that started in Australia) is available free to anyone with a library card. Not exactly a live streaming platform just yet, but the service is already used by more than 5 million people — in partnership with 4,000 libraries around the world. They are now starting to license titles which include acclaimed and historically significant documentaries before they’re available to stream anywhere else. They are also looking to acquire the rights of documentaries and independent films that get launched at festivals but find it hard to find a home. Their vision is to create a platform that makes these films widely available around the world.
- Recent rumours suggest that Google is about to launch a subscription based game streaming service. The service, codenamed “Yeti”, would put Google at the forefront of a new part of the video game business that lets people play games as they’re being streamed, rather than using downloads or disks.
These recent launches come at a pivotal point at which more and more people are rejecting traditional television in favour of digital content. They also represent a shift toward increasingly mobile-first entertainment, in fact according to Ericsson’s “TV and Media 2017” report, 70% of consumers now watch television and video on mobile devices, a figure that has doubled since 2012.
GROWTH MANTRA’S PREDICTION
- Entertainment and how we consume content is already fragmented, and we expect this to become even more so as new experiences and platforms enter the market.
- 5G technology will really ramp things up by making mobile live streaming a much more reliable and enjoyable experience. Last week, Telstra successfully completed a world first end to end data call on a commercial mobile network which shows we aren’t too far off from 5G enabled phones.
- Live streaming will enable global connection. We already saw that people crave the type of connectivity where they can share and influence live events with one another (which has helped drive the success of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube).
- We believe this new world of streaming will open up new opportunities for brands to engage with their customers in new and exciting, deeper, interactive and impactful ways like never before.
