30 Apr The Fight For Your Eye Balls
Remember the time when the whole family sat down to watch a weekly series than ran for 3 months. Often this program had already been played in the Eastern States weeks before or if an overseas show it would a year old or so.
Pay TV came to Australia in the late 90’s with movie channels, live sport & re-runs of series – it still happens today ! My Lauren watches endless re-runs of Friends, That 70’s Show, Will & Grace, etc. etc.
Nowadays we can watch virtually anything we like when we want & watch it through multiple sources. Streaming or Video On Demand (VOD) services are where the battle is being fought and on multiple fronts.
You have probably heard of Netflix and Stan, but in the USA there is also Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Philo, Fubo, Apple TV, Sling TV, YouTube, PlayStation Vue, Crackle, Twitch, VEVO., AT&T. You can add to this Facebook, Twitter (who Broadcast Thursday Night NFL Games in the 2017 season) – hey can anyone say Microsoft TV ?
Disney are about to launch their own VOD Service and 2 coming from left field are AirBnB & Walmart.
AirBnB has its own magazine with > 1m subscribers and it interacts with > 500 million travellers each year. AirBnB already offers a restaurant and separate tour booking services called ‘experiences’ and is looking at transportation services (can anyone say Uber).
Walmart is running a JV with MGM Studios who will create content for its VOD device to be called Vudu. Now you may ask yourself why would a travel booking service and Big Box Retailer get into this business. 3 Reasons really: –
1st – the more interactions they have with you, the more they (think they) control the relationship and the more likely you may purchase something though them (and locks their competitors out)
2nd – society today with I want everything and I want it now, so they are meeting a customer need
3rd – data. The more they know about you the better they can tailor products and services to you.
Stan is the only competitor here to Netflix and all the TV Stations offer streaming of their own programs. It will be interesting to see whether someone like Woolies or Coles or Westfield/Centro would be prepared to partner with a VOD service, given the great competition in retail here.
Please note that these are my own general personal thoughts (Richie Parsons) and do not necessarily represent those of my licencee LWP Financial Pty Ltd T/As Blueprint Advisor Group, nor do they represent any form of personal financial advice