The Race to the Meta Streaming Bundle

Image Source

Bundles are both art and science. The cable bundle was a brilliant invention. With it, Chris Dixon showed us why bundles could make sense mathematically.

But bundles are ebb and flow. You can make money by bundling or by un-bundling. The example for the latter case is Netflix.

It took the entertainment job of TV and ran with it. Netflix executed well and created their own flywheel:

The company gained its initial streaming userbase by licensing Starz’ 11,000 title movie library; while Starz’ effective library size was one (whatever was showing on the Starz channel), Netflix’s was 11,000. That attracted users, which gave Netflix the funding (and prospect for future funding, realized through debt) to buy more shows, attracting more users, providing funding to eventually make their own shows, attracting more users still.

For a brief period intime everyone was happy. All customers needed was one additional subscription (well under $10) and they were set with the biggest catalogue one could imagine. Content producers (aka the supply side) could sell their titles for an extra buck.

But in a way, Netflix was too successful. Other networks or content providers want their slice of the cake, too. Suppliers are increasingly keeping exclusive titles for themselves. At the moment we’re in a situation where everybody who got the money and the content launched their own streaming offer — pundits dubbed the situation the Streaming Wars.

The result: To watch the best shows you’ll need ever more subscriptions (and therefore deeper pockets).

Crucially, even if money were no objection, users need to switch between the different services. Annoying. The overwhelming amount of customers doesn’t want to manage stuff.

On top of all that a lot of desirable content is nowadays not originating from the ‘Hollywood factory’ — it comes from YouTube or other UGC sites. I wrote about this seismic shift before.

What to watch is nowadays more fragmented than ever before. It’s time for a re-bundling.

1. Bundle: Cable
2. Unbundle: Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, …
3. Bundle: ?

Value Proposition

What I would like to see is an App for Smart TVs and Smartphones that integrates the major streaming providers, including free libraries and YouTube.

Features:

• Universal Content Search: Search for shows and episodes inside the streaming providers
• Universal Watch Later: Bookmark service for any type of video content, editable from every device
• Watch Next: Curated start screen with recommendations based on my location and viewing history
• Meta-Rating: Content where ratings are available get a new meta-rating calculated out of IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, letterboxd, metacritic

Competition

Actually a lot of companies are aware that this spot as organizer and starting point for watching TV is vacant and valuable.

Amazon Fire TV

The Fire TV interface pretty early integrated content from other services.

Choosing Stranger Things in this screen will bring us directly into the app, bypassing other screens and we start watching. That’s what we want.

Later, it became possible to search for 3rd party content with typed input or voice. Connecting a broadcast receiver (US) or choosing IP TV from waipu or Zattoo (EU) enables Live TV.

But Prime Video Channels have been their boldest attempt at a one-stop shop. You can simply subscribe to HBO or Showtime through the Fire TV interface.

The strategy is pretty compelling, although the overall UI is too much plastered with advertisements (for Prime Video originals and stuff like car insurances).

Apple TV

Apparently Apple thinks so, too. As Amazon, it leveraged their hardware devices to establish paid channels with the usual suspects.

To get the Fire TV like experience of finding content inside of streaming providers, you’ll have to use the Apple TV app — not to be confused with the Apple TV (hardware device) or Apple TV+ (streaming service).

Unfortunately not every streaming app exposes its content to the Apple TV app, most notably Netflix. I assume you can only get into the TV app in case you are fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem, meaning payments have to go through Apple as well.

I agree with Neil, Apple’s best move in the Streaming Wars is to position themselves as the gateway. I disagree when it comes to their tactics to get there: Instead of spending billions for original content in form of Apple TV+, maybe spent the money to incentivize Netflix, Disney and others to bring their content to the TV app.

Apple could be reducing the 30% App Store cut for apps that integrate their content. This would also help the complaints on the “the-app-store-is-greedy”- front.

Google TV

Google TV is a hardware dongle based on Android TV (complete with support for the Cast-protocol) with a new Google-only skin.

I haven’t had a chance to play with the interface myself, but the stuff we are looking for seems to be in the For You section.

The major services (except Apple) look to be supported with content search and even a universal watch list. The first device to show YouTube recommendations directly without going into the app (and a real native app for that matter).

I would like to have the option to turn off recommendations from sources I haven’t subscribed to and would like to add my own movie library which sits on a network drive.

Roku

Roku used to be an interesting player because they don’t had to push their own streaming service and therefore could offer a more objective interface.

That changed slightly with the Roku Channel with a selection of B-Movies.

Still, as the fore-mentioned competitors, Roku has a pretty broad install base and their own Channel Store.

JustWatch

JustWatch became famous with a simple value proposition: Show me where I can get a specific movie or TV show the cheapest.

The service has evolved and is close to what I’m looking for. I can set up my streaming accounts once and then filter across all of them.

There’s a universal search and a universal watch later list. Great!

But the vertical integration is lacking: In case I found what I want to watch and where to buy or stream it from, I need to switch devices to play it on my living room TV.

Reelgood

Reelgood looks very promising. The interface resembles the Google TV UI.

All the services with native apps for all devices. On top of that, they pioneered some innovative features:

• Roulette: Randomized recommendation based on detailed filter settings
• Integration with trakt (the last.fm for TV and Movies)
• Swipe: Swipe movies with your spouse or a friend Tinder-style til you found a “match”
• Roku Remote: Select what to watch on the smartphone and stream to the big screen Chromecast-style

At first the service wasn’t on my radar because it isn’t available in Germany. Hopefully other countries follow their recent expansion to the UK.

The Joker

While incumbents have the advantage thanks to their existing user base, in this space I could very well imagine a new startup to come up.

If we wanted to build our own Meta-Streaming-App, where would we start?

The best place seems to be Kodi. The tool has an eventful history, maybe you’ll know it under the old name XBMC. There have been already a few successful forks like Boxee and Plex (I’m a longtime fan). It’s open source and available on all platforms.

Kodi’s primary use case was the organizing of movie files sitting on hard disks, but it evolved to so much more. Plugins for the major streaming services Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Disney+ or Prime Video exist. Local ones like BBC iPlayer or ARD/ZDF Mediathek, too.

Even features like Global Search have ready-made plugins.

Challenges:

• It’s definitely not easy to match different content libraries. Heck, Amazon can’t even match the same movie, they have different entries for different languages or resolutions.
• The plugins to integrate other services are unofficial. For a lasting business model the tool should aspire mutually partnerships. It’s a fine line for Netflix & Co.: Be customer-friendly and gain more viewers or keep the control and ability to route eyeballs to (cheaper) original content.
• The extensibility by the community is a major benefit of Kodi — it makes sure that even niche streaming providers can get support. But Apple blocks Kodi on iOS and tvOS, because it could be used for piracy with certain 3rd party plugins. (MrMC removed those parts and got his fork approved.)

The moment our app gains significant traction, we have viewership data to monetize. Don’t feel betrayed, almost everyone else is tracking you right now, too. Reelgood already offers a B2B service to monetize their viewing data.

I don’t know who will win, but I’m sure the identified gap will be filled sooner or later. Even the basic features of such a service are too good to ignore:

• All the content, not a selection
• No pre-roll ads on YouTube or Prime Video
• Streaming providers don’t matter as much, the content stands on its own merits
• One interface to rule them all