Future of TV – Social Blog

No ratings yet.

Tens of millions watched the recent Mayweather vs. McGregor fight on pirate streams. According to VFT Solutions, which monitors live streams in social media, over 7000 live streams were being watched in social media platforms by roughly 100 million viewers. (Granados, 2017)

Tens of millions watched the recent Mayweather vs. McGregor fight on pirate streams

How many of you do still pay for cable TV to watch live sports? In the first quarter of this year a record number of people cancelled their pay TV subscriptions and the number continues to slip at the fastest pace ever (Gallagher & Elder, 2017). The number of losses would have been greater, if it wasn’t for sports programming. Over the last few years, people have been talking about the inevitable disruption of the television industry and the threat of new streaming models, like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video. Telecom companies have seen their revenues switch from pay TV to their broadband Internet services. In the past, a large share of revenue was generated by traditional TV subscription, whereas now steaming video services have become more profitable. This shift in consumer preferences summarises the TV industry disruption.

According to a research by CouponCabin.com 43 percent of cable TV subscribers say that the only reason they still pay for TV subscriptions is for watching live sports (Nooney, sd). Live sports is a major factor keeping people tethered to their cable TV plans and is often referred to as “the last bastion of traditional pay-television.” (Ryan, 2017)

Cutting the TV cord

To give a few examples of live sports migrating to digital platforms, Amazon has been negotiating with some of the U.S.’s biggest sports leagues to acquire the rights to stream sport games. It reportedly paid $50 million to the NFL to stream 10 Thursday night NFL games (DiPietro, 2017). Soccer club AC Milan signed a partnership with live streaming app Sportle, a sports start-up that is changing the way people watch sports. Tech giants are pouring money into acquiring content rights. YouTube secured a deal to broadcast the UEFA Champions League in the UK. This year, Facebook signed multiple deals to broadcast Major League Soccer matches, MLB games and World Surf League events. Meanwhile, Twitter is streaming the WNBA games and exclusive MLB program (Tran, 2017). You might be asking yourself what Netflix is doing. According to the critics, Netflix will not be joining anytime soon. Netflix stays close to its long-term mission saying that they are not a generic “video” company that streams all types of video, such as sports. They want to stay a movie and TV series entertainment network (DiPietro, 2017).

Social media platforms consider live sports as a key catalyst to drive user engagement, growth and eventually revenues. One of the biggest goals for 2017 is to create a social experience around live sports. In February Facebook announced a new app for set-top boxes, including Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and the Samsung Smart TV. This app enables you to watch Facebook videos on a big screen, which is immensely important for watching live sports. (Forbes, 2017) Summarising, live streaming is one of the biggest social media trends in general, but it reaches it peaks around major sports events.

Resources

DiPietro, F., 2017. Amazon and Twitter Are Streaming Sports. Will Netflix Follow?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/22/amazon-and-twitter-are-streaming-sports-will-netfl.aspx

Forbes, 2017. Why Facebook Is Focusing On Live Sports. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/23/why-facebook-is-focusing-on-live-sports/#546a27c82dc6

Gallagher, K. & Elder, R., 2017. Pay-TV subscribers continue to slip. [Online]
Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/pay-tv-subscribers-continue-to-slip-2017-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T

Granados, N., 2017. Tens Of Millions Watched Mayweather Beat McGregor On Pirate Streams. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nelsongranados/2017/08/28/tens-of-millions-watched-mayweather-beat-mcgregor-on-illegal-streams/#7b4bca5179a3

Nooney, C., sd The Future of Sports Streaming In a Cord-Cutting Age. [Online]
Available at: https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/06/future-sports-streaming-cord-cutting-age/

Ryan, K. J., 2017. 5 Industries Ripe for Disruption in 2017. [Online]
Available at: https://www.inc.com/kevin-j-ryan/industries-ripe-for-disruption-in-2017.html

Tran, K., 2017. Facebook is becoming a go-to platform for live streaming sports. [Online]
Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-becoming-go-to-platform-live-streaming-sports-2017-6?international=true&r=US&IR=T

No ratings yet.

Almost everybody has one at home: a TV. A lot of the TV’s that are being sold nowadays are so called smart TV’s, or are made smart with devices like google Chromecast. What makes them smart is the option to connect to the internet and make use of apps. This in combination with the ever growing streaming services provided online could be a potential threat for the traditional pay-TV market(cable, satellite, or telco-TV) as we know it. Television executives are already sounding the alarm. With a 3% decline in the overall TV viewing time in the U.S. in 2015, were 50% was accounted for by Netflix, the question to ask is: Is the traditional pay-TV really going to be replaced with streaming services, or is the ‘death of TV’ we hear about just an illusion?

Recent research from Marketing Charts in conjunction with Newfronts claims that viewers prefer digital video to primetime TV. The results show that people associate streaming services with terms such as “innovative”, “exciting”, “edgy”, and “worth my time”. And with a recent survey from AllFlicks stating that 75.5% of people who have experience using Netflix are convinced that a streaming service like Netflix is the ready replacement for traditional TV, the end for traditional pay-TV seems to be just around the corner. But still almost every household has a pay-TV contract. A big explanation seems to be imbedded in age difference.

The role of age
Age seems to be an very important factor for the liking and using of the new ongoing streaming trend. Researches like the one from TDG Research show a distinctive age gap in TV viewing between younger and older Americans. The researchers asked adult broadband users who were using traditional TV as well as subscription services the following question: “if you had to choose between traditional pay-TV service (cable, satellite, or telco-TV) and subscription streaming video services, which would you choose?”. As you would expect the responses differed strongly by age group as shown in the table below. The older people tend to stick more to the traditional way of watching TV while the younger generation prefers an subscription on the streaming of videos. This result is backed up with other study’s worldwide confirming this distinctive distribution, such as the figure released by Ofcom, showing the results in the UK.

2016-09-27 2016-09-27 (1)

It is clear that young people are driving down the average time spend watching traditional TV while the older generations are keeping traditional TV alive. With an increase in supplied streaming services more and more consumers are shifting towards streaming, giving them the possibility to watch what they want, when they want. This makes it hard to imagine a future with traditional TV as we know it. However I wouldn’t call it the ‘death of TV’. With networks such as HBO and CBS already having launched their own online offerings it is clear that traditional TV channels are evolving and finding ways to survive, extending beyond the traditional television screen and including custom (not full TV package) programming from new sources that can be accessed in new ways. This in combination with TV companies pivoting their business models to distribute on social platforms and the formation of partnerships with digital media brands to create new content will probably secure the future of TV companies for the following years to come.
So, will streaming change the way we use our television as the competition becomes increasingly direct in the years to come? It’s definitely something that’s worth keeping an eye on.

References

BI Intelligence. (2016, July 12). More young people are watching less traditional TV. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/more-young-people-are-watching-less-traditional-tv-2016-7

Loechner, J. (2016, June 01). Traditional TV vs. Streaming Video; It’s In The Eyes/Age Of The Viewer. Retrieved from http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/276939/traditional-tv-vs-streaming-video-its-in-the-ey.html

Lovely, S. (2016, March 02). 76% Of Netflix Subscribers Think Netflix Can Replace Traditional TV. Retrieved from http://cordcutting.com/76-of-netflix-subscribers-think-netflix-can-replace-traditional-tv/

Spangler, T. (2016, March 03). Netflix Caused 50% of U.S. TV Viewing Drop in 2015 (Study). Retrieved from http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/netflix-tv-ratings-decline-2015-1201721672/

Streaming services VS traditional pay-TV: The battle for viewers of the 21st century

27

Please rate this