After the Emmys, TV streaming surges. Can networks keep up?
September sweeps is here, pumpkin spice is back everywhere — really everywhere, help us — and that can only mean one thing: Emmy Season! The annual television awards are this weekend and the program might be more interesting than usual for technology futurists.
In a two-part series, we’ll look first at the impact of binge-watching and streaming hits — which will be more prominent than ever at the Emmys — on the network. In a post-awards second installment, we’ll look at the winning programs and how creatives could use artificial intelligence to identify game-changing concepts and target them to the right individuals.
So what should tech wonks be looking for on Sunday? Let’s talk about streaming.
This year’s Emmy’s is being pitched as a contest pitting traditional TV (represented by HBO and Westworld) against streaming services (represented by Netflix and Stranger Things). Who will win? Who knows. But whatever program and network wins, you can bet that they will face an upsurge in streaming demand for their program as new and returning fans decide to binge the winners.
And this demand will pile on top of an already “unending appetite” for streaming content via subscription platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon [1]. Note that Netflix has more than 50 million streaming customers in the US and more than 100 million worldwide [2], streaming more than 125 million hours of content every day and accounting for 35 percent of all network traffic in North America [3]. Meanwhile HBO’s streaming traffic rose 50 percent with this summer’s Game of Thrones premiere.
But binge-watching and hit-making can cause tremendous variability in Netflix and HBO’s network requirements. Netflix peaked on January 8 with 250 million hours of content streamed — double the average day. And if Stranger Things takes home an Emmy — expect another peak day.
For telco, media and entertainment companies this issue is becoming more and more pressing. CIOs from these companies believe they have less than 2 years to reinvent their networks for this new world of ubiquitous streaming and unpredictable peaks.
Should viewers care? With many people paying $100+ per month for their TV, Internet and Mobile services — waiting for buffering and staring at dropped connections isn’t an option for providers.
In short, if you want your content available on demand on any and all of your devices — and you do, and you know you do — then yes, you should care.
Over the next two years, you will see media and entertainment leaders deploy new “living networks” that leverage network virtualization and AI network and service operations to adapt in real time to exponential changes in demand — so customers can get the content they want, when they want it, on-demand with no missed connections.
So when you start binge-watching the Emmy winners on Sunday night (or Monday morning) — you’ll be able to see what you’ve been missing.
More to come next week for a look at how AI can help create the next round of Emmy winners.
