Streaming wars: Content battles, geo-blocking and telco plays – what next in the Australian subscription video wars?
This week saw the first anniversary of the launch of streaming service, Stan. In part two of the Streaming Wars series Nic Christensen looks at how content, copyright battles and telco platform plays will determine the future of Netflix, Stan and Presto.
The biggest concern for many observers of the emerging Australian streaming battle is the impact it will have on content – particularly Australian content.
On one side is the global budget and reach of Netflix, on the other side, everyone else: that is Networks Seven, Nine, Ten and Foxtel, and their services Stan and Presto.
Carat CEO Simon Ryan says while Australian content is “strong and healthy now” Netflix, which has 75m members in 190 countries, currently has about 1,000 titles from a library of 14,000 titles available locally.
“Free-to-air television in its historic form is being transformed into something which is much more reliant on the internet and…if you fast forward five, 10 or 15 years the likelihood is it’ll be the same incumbent players who are providing the services – just over a different form of technology”.
http://www.smh.com.au/business.....z3uw6kkI4a
Yeah… ask yourself this. How does Experian Hitwise have any idea what these companies are doing? They don’t. They’re pulling these figures out of their backside.
There are only two sources that’d be able to provide you with anything resembling reality. The first is the companies offering the streaming services themselves. You might be able to get that out of the ABC but the rest, yeah, good luck with that.
The second are ISPs who’d be able to tell you about traffic volume. And actually working for a large Australian ISP let me tell you those figures are a load of crap. At peak times Netflixs accounts for nearly 70% of our traffic. Stan and Presto are so low as to be considered a rounding number.
As for 9, 7 and Ten coming anywhere near ABC or SBS? Ha! Again so slow as to be considered rounding numbers.
Check your damn sources.
Someone at Experian Hitwise must have left their computer unlocked when they went to grab lunch as it looks like the FTA networks have jumped on and made themselves look good.
Doubting Experian data sounds like sour grapes to me. It is independent and employs solid methodology. When you have local Netflix commanding a very credible 50+% of the ALL VOD visitation, (and that includes catchup TV), since its launch last year, it is bound to cause some pain all round. Especially as we can’t commercially get access to the Netflix audience. All is not lost, Google to the rescue – the Youtube taudience towers over all these sites combined, including Netflix.
TV regional rights have had their day. I wish these guys would stop yapping on about how they are being hard done by.
Netflix was here well before Stan & Presto.
If they didn’t factor this into their business strategy, they they should be removed from their executive roles.
Next we will be told viewing New York Times content on the web contravenes their journalists rights for regionally distributed content.
Move over TV networks, its your time for digital disruption.
You have had more than long enough to get ready and heard enough heart ache from your subsidiary publication businesses to understand how to get ready for your next incarnation.