Streaming Into Tomorrow: Charting the Next Frontier of SVOD Entertainment.
As we wrapped up Part 2 of our exploration into the streaming wars, we delved into the content boom that characterized the period between 2018–2022. From the strategic splashes of cash on original content by Netflix, to Disney+’s vault of nostalgia, to Apple’s and HBO’s focus on high-quality, avante-grade TV productions, we witnessed a drama worthy of the silver screen.
In this (comprehensive) final installment, we will examine the current state of the SVOD/streaming landscape and the emerging trends we see shaping the future of the market. From the nuanced dance around shifting content strategies → to the rise of ad-supported models giving flashbacks of TV’s golden days → to the ways social video and user-generated content are changing consumer viewing behaviors. There is a lot to unpack so, take your seats, and let’s get to it!
“An Era of Great Anxiety!”
The Streaming Landscape at a Crossroads.
A short while ago, the term ‘streaming wars’ was as much a part of our everyday jargon as ‘binge-watching’ has become. We’ve watched industry Goliaths and scrappy startups alike vie for our attention and monthly subscriptions, each offering a near-infinite amount of content aiming to seduce every conceivable viewer. But as the dust settles and our living room battlegrounds morph back into spaces of tranquility, one question lingers in the air: What comes after the melee?
The Maturation of Streaming Markets.
Today, we find a streaming market that has become saturated, with giants and newcomers alike hitting a subscriber growth wall. As we covered in our previous post, the proliferation of streaming services, and fragmentation of the SVOD landscape, has led to an overwhelming array of choice and escalating costs → causing fatigue among users, leading to subscriber churn and a yearning for simplicity.
After years of extraordinary growth, SVOD is now facing major headwinds, especially in the US, which are expected to impact the growth outlook for most leading streaming services. Over the past five years, the streaming market base (subscribers and revenues alike) has experienced a rapid growth rate, ranging from 25–35% annually. However, analysts’ latest research suggests a shift towards a more modest, single-digit growth expectation in the upcoming years.
To further complicate things, as the streaming industry navigates through this challenging period, marked by competitive pressures and economic constraints, Wall Street has decided (arguably) overnight that chasing “growth at all costs” was not the play that was called for — profitability was. This focus shift from an era of blockbuster budgets, aimed at attracting new customers, to a more measured approach, prioritizing sustainable bottom lines, is setting a new stage for the next chapter in the evolution of SVOD services.
From Blockbuster Budgets to “Show Me The Money!”
The Good Ol’ Days!
In the golden days of TV and cinema, the economic blueprint was elegantly simple: advertisers paid networks for eyeballs during commercial breaks, and studios banked on box office success followed by DVD sales and syndication rights. Revenue flowed in predictable streams, and success metrics were clear-cut. However, the advent of streaming services marked a significant shift in the traditional TV business model.
Over the last years, we’ve seen Pay TV ad revenues fall as households continue to “cut the cord”. At the same time, we’ve seen streaming services heavily rely on subscription-based models over traditional advertising fees to generate a majority of their revenues. Yet, while the allure of recurring revenue for SVOD is clear, it’s not without its pitfalls.
Subscription-as-a-Service ≠ SaaS.
Subscription-as-a-Service (albeit “SaaS”) should not be confused with Software-as-a-Service (OG “SaaS”), despite sharing the same acronym. Just as content varies in quality, business models also differ significantly in structure and approach. Despite that, many initially embraced the shift of media towards subscription-based models, primarily driven by streaming platforms, with open arms, anticipating a success similar to the “software eating the world” phenomena phenomenon and hoping for comparable economic value creation akin to the transition from on-premise services to software-as-a-service models in the 2010s. (more on that here).
However, it is now becoming increasingly apparent, for both the “New Kids on the Block” and incumbents alike, that the economics of subscription-based streaming services are fundamentally different from those of successful SaaS businesses, and, with that, so are the prospects of attractive margins/profits for a lot of SVOD platforms.
I’ll deep-dive into this in a separate post but, while there is considerable overlap between the recurring revenues of both business models, and it’s true that most SaaS works best with a subscription model, there are also important differences underpinning the fundamental business drivers and resulting economics (and bottom lines) of the two.
A critical distinction to make is that while both subscription-based and SaaS models generally tend to demand substantial upfront investments for their initial product or service launch, the former often face significantly higher ”maintenance” costs. The ongoing investments required by streaming services to continually update their content libraries and intellectual property (IP) are significantly higher (and riskier!) than the lower maintenance costs required by SaaS businesses for software updates. This key difference in ongoing, “maintenance” costs places most SVOD providers on a relentless content “hamster wheel,” posing a challenge to the long-term sustainability and profitability of their current business models.
Where network television had a relatively stable ad-based revenue model, streaming platforms have been pushed to continually invest heavily into content creation to keep subscribers from hitting the cancel button, as we covered in our previous post.
However, amid this spending spree, and the high-stakes game of content roulette, lies a strong undercurrent of change, as most platforms have begun grappling with the (short-term) prospects of profit and the (long-term) sustainability of their expensive content strategies.
The public markets’ pivot to profitability, hastened by macroeconomic headwinds, seems to have put an end to the era of pursuing growth at all costs and now casts a giant shadow over the SVOD landscape. In this altered vista, Netflix stands as a solitary beacon of profit amidst a sea of red ink, with industry titans such as Disney, Warner Bros., Peacock, and Paramount collectively bleeding over $10bn in the year 2022 alone.
In this new (challenging) reality, companies have begun flirting with the reintroduction of ad-supported services, in their efforts to diversify revenue streams (more on that later!). A nod to the traditional television model, but with the sophistication of digital targeting — potentially driving a profound shift back to a hybrid and profitable economic model.
Shifting Content Strategies.
Unscripted Belt-Tightening.
This newfound sobriety has prompted a strategic introspection within these major streaming platforms, driving a deceleration in content spending growth after years of aggressive expansion. The Wall Street Journal, for example, produced this great visualization of orders before the strike and the picture is not pretty:
According to the report and Ampere Analysis research, the number of adult scripted series orders in H2'22 was down 24% from the prior year. And, as Ankler noted, this was supposed to be when streamers were stocking up on content for a potential (then realized) strike.
Recent headlines haven’t been much better, with Warner Bros. Discovery starting the “un-order” and “removals” trend last year, followed by some of the Big Tech giants such as Prime Video “un-ordering” A League of Their Own and The Peripheral, and Apple TV+/NBCUniversal pulling the plug on Sam Esmail’s Metropolis reboot. The trend has not spared Disney either. In its most recent earnings call, Disney’s interim CFO, Kevin Lansberry, said that next year the company expects to spend “only” $25bn on content (o/w approx. 40% is sports rights), down from $27bn this year. While this may not seem like a lot, the company was initially targeting content spend in the low $30bn(!) range this year, implying an “annualized entertainment cash content spend reduction target” of $4.5bn, excluding the impact from the strikes.
As Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, put it earlier this year…
“We need to rationalize our enviable streaming business and put it on a path to sustained growth and profitability while also reducing expenses to improve margins and returns… And so with that goal in mind, we will focus even more on our core brands and franchises, which have consistently delivered higher returns.” — Bob Iger, Disney CEO
Finally, Netflix has also stated that it expects to spend roughly $13bn on content this year, down from the expected $17bn, due to the strikes.
All that to say, while content has ruled King’s Landing for some time, we may find ourselves in the thick of a scene reminiscent of GoT “The Bells” episode, with profitability marching into King’s Landing to claim the Iron Throne.
Content Unbound, Walled Gardens Undone?
As streamers reevaluate their content strategies, and after years of zealously guarding their content fortresses, could we also be witnessing the lowering of drawbridges? As profitability comes into focus, the walled garden of content may also be coming down. While streaming platforms have historically avoided licensing their content to third parties, in an attempt to launch their own platforms and grow their subscriber bases, many are now switching gears and thinking of additional ways to monetize their IP more efficiently.
“I have drilled down into every facet of the streaming business to determine how to achieve both profitability and growth…This may include greater use of legacy distribution opportunities to increase revenue and more effectively amortize content investment.” — Bob Iger, Disney CEO
In other words, once you decide your streaming ambitions aren’t your ‘north star,’ why not license as much of this (original) content as possible?
Take the series “Stranger Things” or “Game of Thrones,” for instance. They were both huge hits for Netflix and HBO, respectively, and have significantly driven viewers to their platforms. However, the ability of this content to attract new subscribers tends to wane over time. Thus, the question then becomes “How do Netflix and HBO (and others) make additional revenue from these shows?” It’s probably by finding new third parties/partners for whom this content is more valuable. In this landscape of shifting priorities, even heavyweight platforms may find it profitable to syndicate their content, offering up past hits to bolster the catalogs of emerging services seeking to enhance their content offerings.
To Infinity and Beyond: Charting the Future of Streaming!
As we stand at this crossroads, with our digital libraries and watchlists overflowing, it’s worth taking a step back and gazing into the crystal ball — or rather, the reflective screen — to look at what are some of the emerging trends in the space. And, while each of these themes likely deserves a post on its own (stay tuned for that!), we’ll simply aim to share some preliminary insights into how the following trends may potentially impact/shape the future of the SVOD/streaming market.
- The Rise of AVOD/FAST Offerings and Emergence of Hybrid Models
- The Great Rebundling and Impending Case For Further Market Consolidation
- The Blurring of Lines Between SVOD, Social Video, and UGC
- The Shift From Passive “Watch & Chill” Platforms Into Holistic/Interactive Content Ecosystems
- The Emergence of Live Sports as the Next Content Battleground
1) The Rise of AVOD/FAST Offerings and The Emergence of Hybrid Models.
Ad Astra or Back to the Future?
Just like Major Roy McBride ventured into space in search of his lost father, in Brad Pitt’s Ad Astra, Big Media/Tech launched into streaming in search of new subscribers/revenues. However, as the streaming market has become increasingly crowded, companies are finding customers have a threshold for how many services they’ll pay for and how much they’re willing to spend. This has led most of our key streaming actors to begin launching or acquiring AVOD/FAST offerings to diversify revenue streams and to capitalize on growing ad demand, perhaps prompting our plot to look more like that of “Back to the (Ad) Future.”
The ad-supported tier is an ingenious counter, allowing streamers to offer a lower-priced alternative to viewers who balk at yet another monthly fee, thereby keeping them within their ecosystem rather than losing them to subscription consolidation or decision paralysis. From a business perspective, ad-supported models also open up a new vein of revenue, one that is particularly resilient during economic downturns when consumers are more likely to downgrade from premium to ad-supported options. Furthermore, targeted advertising can be incredibly lucrative. By leveraging viewer data, streaming services can offer high-value targeted advertising slots, turning their platforms into goldmines of consumer insights.
With that in mind, ad revenues are becoming an increasingly important driver of growth for the major platforms with the number of AVOD (“advertising-based video on demand”) and FAST (“free ad-supported streaming television) channels exploding in the last few years and companies have increasingly focused on launching (or acquiring) AVOD/FAST offerings to diversify revenue streams and capitalize on the growing ad demand.
Ad-supported formats have continued to gain share, with ad tiers accounting for meaningful subscriber bases — e.g., ~75% of Peacock’s total subscriptions are ad-supported. The same holds true for Hulu and Paramount, with research estimates showing >50% ad-supported subscriptions for these players. In a similar fashion, we’ve seen other major platforms like Disney, Netflix, and Paramount lean into ad-supported offerings in search of better margins.
We’ll deep dive into this topic in a separate post. However, this isn’t just about the bottom line; it’s about longevity. As ad-supported formats continue to outpace the growth and gain share vs. SVOD, it’s likely that we will now see the Streaming Wars fought across multiple fronts — from SVOD to AVOD, FAST, and Hybrid Models.
The challenge will be in striking the right balance. Viewers have grown accustomed to uninterrupted content, so the introduction of ads must be tactful — minimal disruption for maximum enjoyment. There’s also the user privacy aspect, navigating the fine line between personalized ads and intrusive data mining.
In summary, ad-supported tiers aren’t just a nod to the past but a strategic move for the future, enabling streaming platforms to cast a wider net and reel in diverse revenue streams, while giving viewers more choice and advertisers a more direct connection to their audience.
2) The Great Rebundling and Impending Case For Further Market Consolidation.
The Great Rebundling.
In addition to massive content spending, the fierce competition for SVOD dominance has also been a catalyst for strategic consolidation.
As leading streaming platforms seek to enhance their IP rights and content offerings, production, and monetization capabilities — especially as audiences shift toward AVOD/FAST and hybrid models — we are likely to witness even more consolidation, through “rebundling” or M&A, in the coming years. Warner Bros. CEO, David Zaslav, shares this sentiment but doesn’t think it will necessarily be through traditional M&A.
“There should be a consolidation, but it is more likely to happen in the repackaging and marketing of products together. That’s what I think makes sense. We have to, as an industry, reach that point. If we don’t do it to ourselves, I think it will be done to us. It will be Amazon who does it, or Apple who does it, or Roku who does it. They’ve already started.” — David Zaslav, Warner Bros. CEO
Rebundling of streaming services is not only timely but likely necessary, as consumers have grown fatigued with the number of streaming services (and the “tyranny of choice”). As part of this trend, streaming, media, and tech giants are beginning to combine OTT offerings to create more compelling bundles in order to protect/grow their market shares. For example:
- Apple TV offers access to certain platforms such as Paramount+, AMC+, and Starz as “channels” that users can purchase within the Apple TV app.
- In the US, Disney is planning to incorporate Hulu into Disney+, with the new app expected to launch next month.
- Prime Video offers access to Paramount+, Starz, AMC+, and, most recently, HBO Max and Discovery+ for Prime members at an additional cost.
- Paramount bundled Paramount+ and Showtime long ago and recently announced a partnership with Walmart, whereby Walmart+ members receive a complimentary subscription to Paramount+.
However, the clearest indication of this trend is the (hot off the press!) most recent announcement that Netflix and HBO Max would be teaming up with Verizon to offer a discounted streaming bundle. As part of this bundle, Verizon will offer ad tiers of both services for about $10 a month combined, instead of $17. The introduction of Verizon’s discounted bundle is quite opportune, given the continued “streamflation” we’ve seen in ad-free streaming services, with prices up by ~25% over the past year or so.
As nifty of a solution as it may seem though, the bundling of streaming services will still likely face some of the same questions and challenges that have plagued the traditional Pay TV (bundle) models for years.
All in the Family.
Then there’s M&A. While last year, overall M&A activity dipped sharply (following quarters of record activity,) as a result of inflation and uncertainty over regulatory concerns (more on that below,) we are likely to see M&A activity pick up across the OTT landscape as size and scale matter more than ever.
In the wake of Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, the media landscape experienced a significant realignment. The deal, worth billions, granted Disney ownership of valuable intellectual properties like Marvel, Star Wars, and The Simpsons, positioning them as a formidable content powerhouse. Companies like Apple and Amazon have also, historically, shown a keen interest in acquiring content production companies and streaming platforms to bolster their respective ecosystems.
More recently, the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery brought together iconic brands like HBO, CNN, Discovery Channel, and Warner Bros. under one roof. In a similar fashion, Paramount and Showtime announced their plans to combine, earlier this year, in an attempt to boost their positions in the US market.
At the same time, speculation about Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, hanging a “possibly-for-sale” sign on Disney’s TV businesses has also circled the company in recent months, as its stock hovers at its lowest levels in nearly a decade, while others believe that an acquisition, or strategic partnership, with ESPN for Apple to anchor its sports offerings on its fledgling streaming service, could be a “no-brainer.”
We’ll let the rumor mill continue to spin but, just like many others, we anticipate that the maturation and saturation of the SVOD market will likely catalyze more M&A activity in the short term.
Cause For Concern?
For decades, competition enforcers essentially rubber-stamped many so-called vertical mergers — the combination of firms in different parts of a supply chain, rather than direct competitors — under the theory that they lower production costs and ultimately lead to lower prices for consumers.
However, this recently changed under the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, both of which have been seeking to rein in the consolidation of major industries by a handful of companies.
Together with that, earlier this year the Writers Guild of America West (WGA) raised concerns about the potential for major platforms such as Netflix, Disney, and Amazon to become ‘the new gatekeepers’ of the entertainment industry.
In their 15-page antitrust report, the WGA outlined how these players have accumulated market power through mergers and anti-competitive practices and took specific aim at Disney’s purchases of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, as well as Netflix’s acquisitions of production house Albuquerque Studios, animation shops Scanline VFX and Animal Logic, and the intellectual property catalogs Millarworld and The Roald Dahl Story Co. The guild also claimed that Amazon has parlayed its practices as a tech company into entertainment, aggressively acquiring other companies, kneecapping competitors with “tolls” and allegedly underpaying union residuals.
Amid this uncertain regulatory backdrop, it may take some convincing for beleaguered companies in the media and entertainment industry to look for transformative dealmaking. Yet, a lot of industry analysts and media executives believe it’s not a matter of whether it is happening but more a question of when it’s happening.
3) The Blurring of Lines Between Linear, SVOD, Social Video, and User-Generated-Content.
New Content Formats and the Rise of Social Video and UGC.
The shift to digital platforms has blurred the lines between TV, film, and online/social video. Content is now global, and creators have more freedom to experiment with formats and storytelling. Streaming platforms are now also offering a wider range of content formats than traditional TV networks, including short-form content, documentaries, and reality shows. This is because streaming platforms are not bound by the same traditional constraints as TV networks, such as time slots and commercial breaks. This gives creators the freedom to experiment with different formats and storytelling techniques.
Together with that and increasingly so, social media and user-generated content (“UGC”), often referred to as “short-form” content, is now playing an important role in the distribution of content, with platforms like TikTok and YouTube giving rise to new stars (e.g., the D’Amelio sisters, Mr. Beast, etc.), content trends (e.g., short-form videos, reels, etc.), and consumption patterns, which are likely to shape the future of media and entertainment.
As Doug Shapiro references in his article, “Forget Peak TV, Here Comes Infinite TV,” today, YouTube has >2.5bn global users and ~100m channels that upload over 30,000 hours of content every hour. That is equivalent to Netflix’s entire domestic content library — every hour. Ironically, Netflix gave YouTube an unintended shoutout in its latest shareholder letter by noting “Our share of TV screen time in the U.S. is greater than any streamer other than YouTube.”
While this was probably meant as a not-so-humble brag, the above chart shows the increasing popularity of YouTube (not even accounting for the minutes it gets on laptops and mobile phones) is positioning the platform as a leading streaming service and competitor to other SVOD platforms.
TikTok has shown a similar trajectory having now surpassed the 1.8bn users. And while we don’t know how many hours of content are on TikTok, 83% of its users also upload content. However, while the average daily time spent on “short-form” video continues to grow, research by consulting firm, Activate, shows that the judge is still out there on whether such short-form content actually eats into “TV viewing” (which includes traditional + streaming long-form content).
Despite the near-infinite universe of short-form content out there, most stakeholders (Hollywood, content creators, and consumers alike) rarely see social/UGC as a direct contender to professionally produced “long-form” content. Yet, the rise of short-form may ultimately change consumers’ definition of quality — with criteria such as authenticity, virality, surprise, digestibility, and personalization potentially becoming of top importance for consumers (esp. amongst younger demographics) — in turn, shaping new consumption expectations and, with that, impacting distribution channels.
In addition to affecting consumer viewing behaviors, short-form content is likely to also directly impact media/streaming companies since:
- Ad money must go somewhere: With short-form videos clearly competing for some brand dollars that would otherwise end up on TV.
- Attention, too, must go somewhere: Similar to ad revenue, the time spent on social may unintentionally reduce time spent on traditional media, affecting engagement rates.
- TikTok could become a new gatekeeper for content discovery: With younger TikTok users increasingly turning to TikTok for search.
So, while in many ways it’s not difficult to imagine the coexistence of short-form content and more professionally produced long-form content (in the same way that generalist streamers and specialized SVODs complement each other), short-form content is likely to continue actively shaping the future of content consumption, creation, and distribution.
4) The Shift From Passive “Watch & Chill” Platforms Into Holistic/Interactive Content Ecosystems.
Streaming services are also evolving from passive “watch and chill” platforms into more interactive/holistic platforms (or, at least trying to!). The goal? Turn viewers into participants. In many ways, the major media/streaming platforms are taking the cue from platforms like Twitch and YouTube which are setting the standard for interactive viewing, where the audience is as much a part of the show as the content itself.
The production of live events and interactive experiences by major streaming platforms, leveraging the breadth and popularity of their IP, is adding new dimensions to the media & entertainment business, and offering consumers ways to engage with their favorite content and brands in new and immersive ways.
Historically, the best example of this has been Disney, which has been in the retail, dining, and live entertainment spaces for decades. Today, these businesses are heavily intertwined with their core media business, creating a synergistic ecosystem that enhances brand loyalty and market presence in more than one way. To put the importance of these business lines into context – during its latest Q3'23 earnings release theme parks accounted for ~$1.8bn in operating income (about as much as Netflix!), and roughly 60% of the company’s operating income.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that in a similar effort, the OG streaming platform, Netflix, recently announced its plans to open a network of stores offering retail, dining, and live entertainment that leverages the IP of its TV shows and movies, according to a Bloomberg report.
“We’ve seen how much fans love to immerse themselves in the world of our movies and TV shows, and we’ve been thinking a lot about how we take that to the next level.” — Josh Simon, Netflix VP of Consumer Products
The streamer plans to open the first two of these “Netflix House” locations in unannounced cities in the U.S. in 2025 and hopes to expand the concept to major cities around the world thereafter. Earlier this year, Netflix also opened a pop-up restaurant in LA featuring menu items created by chefs associated with its cooking shows, showing this may be part of a more concerted way to extend the longevity and lifetime value of its content.
Finally, this trend towards more holistic content distribution strategies (esp. by big IP owners) has also given rise to fast-growing platforms like Fever, which have carved a differentiated position in the live entertainment space, acting both as discovery platforms (allowing people to discover local events/experiences through personalized and curated recommendations) and distributors/producers of unique events, such as The Stranger Things Experience, in partnership with leading content/IP owners.
5) The Emergence of Live Sports as the Next Content Battleground.
No Day Like Game Day.
As platforms look for ways to differentiate to attract new users, and further engage existing ones to mitigate churn, sports are becoming an important new battleground for a lot of SVOD platforms. Except for Netflix, most major SVOD platforms have been adding live sports content to drive subscriber growth and retention over the past few years.
OTT platform content spend on sports rights globally is expected to reach $8.5bn in 2023, a >60% increase compared to 2022, per research by Ampere Analysis. The research also predicts that the share of spend on sports rights by streaming platforms will increase in 2023 to reach 21% of global sports rights investment, up from 13% in 2022.
Despite this significant increase, SVOD services’ spend on sports rights has historically lagged compared to investments in original TV and film. However, recent years have seen an acceleration in sports rights spend by major players, as service providers look to differentiate from peers in an increasingly crowded market.
The exclusive NFL deal with Amazon that kicked off in September 2022 was arguably the turning point for SVOD investments in sports. It represented the largest single deal signed to date by any sports streaming service and has since been surpassed only by YouTube — also with the NFL.
The increasing competition for highly sought-after distribution rights for live sports has driven significant premiums to prior contracts while, at the same time, increasing the franchise value growth across various leagues.
Moneyball Turns to Eyeballs.
Interestingly enough, despite some of these sports rights often being loss-making, broadcasters and streamers alike have demonstrated a willingness to absorb these direct losses to exclusively distribute live sports. Not because these distributors are irrational per se, but rather because of what sports properties deliver in attracting and engaging subscribers and audiences, and the pricing power live exclusive sports ensure to those distributors.
Live sports are consistently the top-rated programs across linear television in a given year, with NFL broadcasts accounting for 82 of the top 100 TV broadcasts in 2022. While, among adults 18–49, the NFL and NBA accounted for 7 of the top 10 series (three or more telecasts) in 2022, and almost 75% of the top 10 series aggregate viewership.
Therefore, at a high level, the appeal of live sports to SVOD and tech platforms is the same as it is for broadcasters, the ability for this “exclusive” (sports) content to aggregate large audiences → in turn, reigniting subscriber growth, enhancing retention, and (in this new era of ad-supported subscriptions) potentially drive incremental advertiser demand.
Because of these reasons, amongst other more nuanced ones (which I’ll cover in a future post,) we can expect continued growth in sports rights investments by major SVOD/media players.
Conclusion.
The Streaming Odyssey Continues.
As we close the final chapter of this exploration into the streaming landscape, we find ourselves at an inflection point. The streaming ecosystem, once a wild west of endless possibilities and uncharted territories, is now navigating through a more mature, albeit complex, phase. From the recalibration of content spending in a plateauing market, to the proliferation of AVOD/FAST services, to the potential emergence of bundled offerings and prospects of consolidation, the future of streaming is as intricate as it is intriguing. The challenge now lies in balancing profitability with innovation and finding harmony between customer satisfaction and shareholder demands — all while ensuring the building of long-term sustainable strategies.
Thank You!
I hope you’ve enjoyed our journey through the evolving landscape of streaming! Throughout our three-part series, we’ve covered everything from the rise of our NKOTB, as players like Netflix transitioned from physical to digital dominance, to the peak of the streaming wars, where we saw content become king, queen, and jester, to this final installment where we tried to unpack where the current state of the market and some of the emerging trends we see shaping the ever-evolving media ecosystem.
If anything, the streaming wars have taught us that content isn’t just a service; it’s an experience, a shared global language, and, perhaps more importantly, an increasingly important part of our cultures. As we look ahead, it will be exciting to see how to ecosystem continues to evolve and you can be on the lookout for a few follow-up posts double-clicking into some of the topics we covered throughout this series.
In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn for more on the latest and greatest in media, entertainment, and sports — (not so) hot takes and all.
