Staying relevant means staying updated about the ongoing changes in society. After scanning for changes in the media industry FMG has identified six trends that will have a great impact on the media industry over the next years. Starting today we are going to post a series of blogs about future media trends, beginning with Part 1: “The streaming battle”.
What has happened?
Over the past decade we have seen the viewer numbers for TV drop each year, but since a few years ago the trend has changed and consumers are once again turning to their TV sets. This is of course primarily driven by SVOD (Subscription video on demand) and online TV. Even traditional TV channels have realised they need to develop their own competitive SVOD platforms to survive the challenge of the big international streaming platforms such as Netflix, HBO and the newer addition of Disney+. One example is Swedish TV4-Play who created their premium offering C More, combining exclusive TV4 productions with regular movies and series. There are constantly new players entering the market hoping to steal a piece of the SVOD share, but what will the increasing competition and the growing offer of movies and videos lead to?
Consumers neither have the time nor the money for all of these options, and the increased competition could therefore lead to subscription fatigue and industry consolidation. Will we continue to use SVOD services? Yes, but consumers will most likely pick one or a few services that offer the best original content and the algorithms that best understand their demands and recommends the most relevant content.
How will the SVOD platforms keep up?
One of the latest trends is to not only use data in a reactive way, but to use and track data from viewers during broadcast to steer the content to increase engagement. A show that used this technique early on was Love Island UK, where they adjusted the content editorially to increase the engagement and number of viewers. The result was maximised value for all parties: the viewers, the production company, but also the sponsors and advertisers who got more exposure.
What does the streaming war mean for advertisers?
The benefits we see is an increase in different opportunities for advertisers to market themselves, such as product placement, branded integrations and co-promotion of productions.
We also see potential challenges: More “advertisement free” subscriptions reduce the opportunities for traditional advertisement, which puts pressure on advertisers to be more creative to reach out to their audiences.
No matter what, both advertisers and media companies need to adjust to the fact that SVOD is here to stay, and they need to learn how to innovate to exploit the new marketing possibilities.
