Yes please.
Iām not sure whether anyone else has seen this yet, but I noticed the streaming service Loinsgate+ launched the other day. It popped up on Prime the other night.
That would severely hurt Stan as much of the programming on Stan is from the NBC Universal deal.
They are still (maybe) in the hunt - NBCU appears to offer āstreamsā of rights - an FTA stream (which is the one that Seven are currently tipped to win) and at least a subscription stream. AFR reports that Nine and Fox are still in the hunt for additional streams.
AFR are also reporting that its Seven pushing for Peacock, not NBCUā¦
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Yep - TVNZ+ seems to have a free stream and SkyNZ/Neon another swag of NBCU content.
Oh goody, more streaming services, this is exactly what we need.
/s
On a more serious note though I can see why 7 is keen to get back in the game and it would have all FTA networks aligned with a SVOD service. The whole industry gives me dot-com bubble vibes however, will be very interesting to see what happens when it bursts.
Bursts?
Are you expecting streaming to die off and audiences to return to FTA?
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Oh, dear. streaming isnāt going to burst. it is going to get bigger. and if anything streaming services might merge with each other, but it is certainly NOT going to burst
I think @captaincupcakeās point - and theyāre typing as I speak - is that much like dot com bubble, the number of services in market is not sustainable. Not that FTA is going to Bradbury it and come back when they fall over.
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Yup. I remember back when there was just 2, Netflix and Stan who had a whole variety of content before Disney, Paramount, Amazon, WB, and now NBCUniversal came into play as well as Apple and BBC. The services like Netflix and Stan who have a whole variety of shows from different companies are not going to survive as they will just have all there content taken away, and Stan will be hit hardest as they rely on content made by other companies.
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Not at all, however I canāt see people expanding their budgets indefinitely to sign up to more and more services and we are reaching a point where the market is so fragmented that surely a lot of these services are not going to have enough subscribers to survive.
I think you are misinterpreting me here, by burst I mean that the industry will rationalise and consolidate into a few main players, instead of all of these new services that are cannibalising the existing subscriber bases.
Thanks mate, couldnāt have explained it better if I tried. 
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Why arenāt they sustainable?
They all provide different and unique content. Of all the ones out now none of them appear to be struggling for subscribers at all.
I think thereās still room for more.
Especially when subscribers who canāt afford all at once can subscribe month by month and switch between services.
Thereās plenty of room for them all.
well, i apologise and I do get ur point. could see that actually happening,
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Lionsgate+ is a rebranded Starz Play, with Epix soon to be rebranded as MGM+
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Iām a mod for a streaming Australia tv group on FB and when people have complained about all the streaming services one of the admins has suggested exactly that. if there is something you like on a particular service sub to that for a month, then cancel, and so on
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I certainly donāt think thereās room for the scale of streaming services that exists now.
If thereās less content spread out among more providers - thereās only a small core that have enough of a viable content archive to be enough to keep around all the time - the rest people would happily pick up for a big series, and then drop away - but the economics of the price point rely on year round subs to get close to the revenue needed.
Hence the move towards ad supported tiers - and I would expect over time, a shift to contract models with a promised lower monthly fee in exchange for lengthy contracts - all the negatives of the old Pay TV model. Services with a strong niche or broad content might survive that - but I think a lot of others will need to bundle or scale down significantly
An example would be the turmoil at Discovery+/HBO Max - so many shows being axed or scaled down trying to figure out a path to profitability in moving to the new streaming first business model. That in turn will also mean fewer risks being taken on what might be good new content, as they spend reduced budgets on content they think will be surefire hits.
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Thereās only so many hours in the day - ergo there is only so much content that can be consumed. As more players come in that makes less of the pie of eyeballs to be shared.
And I donāt think the month by month switching thing is a sustainable business model.
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Reverting back to the original article posted this afternoon, I guess this is why 7 need to get a move on.
They canāt continue to be the only commercial network not in the streaming market.
They will fall behind.
The shift from content producers to being producers and streaming services has put real pressure on the industry - Any streamer that is relying on content from others is probably at the greatest risk initially - Stan probably end up on the precipice slightly if the NBCU deal moves streamers.
A flooded market of streamers will see peopleās attitudes towards subscribing change and a lot of people will be unlikely to āpick and stickā moving around to follow new content - piracy is allegedly on the rise again too. It will be interesting to see what the impact of increases in the cost of living will have too - while individually not a lot of money, market research appears to indicate that people are paying for multiple services each month and that adds up quickly - if spending tightens, youād think that this will be one of the first areas that people cut their expenditure from.
Australian FTA should be looking at leveraging their own historic content libraries for their streamers - itās a potential point of difference that possibly doesnāt attract hefty licensing fees.
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They could, but it leaves a whole media market that is untapped and as Nine have shown, one capable of delivering strong financial outcomes (not to mention puts them at a significant disadvantage for getting sports rights because it gets forced to seek subscription partners).
For a broadcaster that was somewhat forward thinking in the late 90s, and early 00s, being early proponents for digital multi-channeling and trying to get into subscription-driven services you canāt help but feel that the failures (including an investment in a streamer that was probably a tad early) have made Seven incredibly gun-shy.
There are a number of reasons why an increasing number of streamers wouldnāt be sustainable and many have already been articulated in response. If youāre a new service coming to market, you need to offer something that differentiates or makes you stand out in the sea of options - that will get harder as more options come online and the number of uncovered niches reduces. Thatās not to say that there arenāt opportunities for new players to enter the market, but they do so at massive risk, especially if they have limited control over the content they have access to.
Decision paralysis will become a factor too - an increasing number of options often increases the āfrictionā to change, not because itās hard to change but because the sheer number of options makes choosing difficult. This will benefit incumbency (ie the streamer youāre currently subbed with) and probably the bigger names.
One of the big areas I think Amazon Prime has an advantage with is that itās tied to a much larger proposition and if you use other elements of your Prime subscription (such as the postage options on amazon.com.au) you can pretty quickly recoup the cost of the annual service.
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