Streaming services decline for first time!

[Keith]

The increase in streaming services has resulted in a situation where the likes of Amazon etc have been thriving on streaming income for the past several years and then a series of events has come along which has ripped a huge hole in their revenue. Now no-one could have forecasted what’s happened over the past 2 and a bit years but I would hazard a guess that the streaming services have been left wrong-footed

I also think that some of the streaming services will fail as a result in both proliferation and reduced income. I don’t know how many services are officially available in the UK but I would be surprised if more that half are still here in2024.

Already we've had ITV announce that they're effectively planning to rebrand ITV Hub+ as ITV X, and then merge Britbox into this. Similarly across the pond there's been the announcement of CNN+ closing, and presumably it's only a matter of time before HBO Max and Discovery+ are merged.

In terms of streaming services in general I guess a lot will depend on whether the target audience is national or global, and whether the service is 'free' of subscription. National UK based streaming services such as iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4, and My5 I envisage should still survive as they offer a free version, and are provide a catch-up service for their linear channels.

I'd have thought Amazon Prime Video will survive due to their Prime delivery benefits, and the showing of live sport. Similarly I think Disney+ should be fine due to it's huge back-catalogue, thanks in part to various acquisitions over the years.

Perhaps more dubious is Apple TV, which I won't be too surprised if over time transforms into a portal for other streaming services. The fact that Barclaycard customers can get 5 months for free slightly raises an eyebrow as to how generous a period that is. It's also worth noting that a number of streaming services now have (or soon will have) an ad-supported version of their platform at a cheaper subscription price. Whilst this is clearly an attempt to gain more subscribers I wonder if this could backfire as some customers may downgrade from their premium ad-free subscriptions.