Digital Lifescapes

Ongoing disruption of the video entertainment industry is most apparent in North America, where incumbent pay-TV service providers continue to report significant subscriber declines. Past attempts to slow or reverse the customer losses have proven to be unsuccessful. Clearly, it's a huge challenge. Furthermore, relatively new rivals in the sector, such as AT&T and Verizon, have invested heavily to acquire legacy media and online advertising companies in the hope of finding a viable business model to compete with more innovative offerings from a growing list of alternative providers. Video Entertainment Market Development Meanwhile, the growth of subscription over-the-top (OTT) video services has been driving the changing trends in the pay-TV landscape. OTT video services have attracted hundreds of millions of subscribers worldwide, causing pressure on traditional pay-TV operators. This OTT growth trend is expected to continue, reaching a subscriber base of 400 million i...

Digital TV and online video has seen the battle between Over the Top (OTT) providers and traditional television networks pushed to the forefront. In order to differentiate themselves, and reduce the need to rely on expensive content partnerships, OTTs will produce more of their own entertainment content. According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) services -- from leading providers such as Netflix and Amazon -- will drive a surge in OTT revenues to reach $120 billion in 2022, and that's up from $64 billion in 2017. In this environment, the traditional expensive bundle of pay-TV services will surely continue their decline. Original Content Market Development The upside market opportunity for the innovative low-cost video entertainment providers is significant. The in-depth market research also uncovered that over a quarter of global households will eventually subscribe to SVOD services by 2022. The new research foun...

Some traditional pay-TV service providers have already supported their customer's expectations for better apps on smart TVs, which enable service subscribers to overcome the limitations of their provider's set-top box and limited on-demand video programs. Moreover, the leading online video subscription services -- such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu -- enable millions of American smart TV owners to independently access video entertainment (without traditional pay-TV). Internet-Connected TV Market Development According to new research from The Diffusion Group (TDG), the penetration of Internet-connected TVs among U.S. broadband households has increased nearly 50 percent since 2013 -- from 50 percent market penetration to 74 percent at the end of 2016. Connected-TV market penetration grew by 22 percent between 2013 and 2014, and another 15 percent between 2014 and 2015. However, new growth has slowed to only 4 percent, indicating that the market has matured, which is...

Video entertainment demand has been evolving rapidly. Yet traditional pay-TV service providers are still challenged to address the needs of more progressive consumers. Case in point: subscriber awareness of their "TV Everywhere" offerings -- the ability to watch programming from their pay-TV provider on devices other than a TV -- remains low at 36 percent, which is unchanged since 2013. Meanwhile, pay-TV marketers are attempting to capitalize on another growing trend. Skinny bundles, TV subscription packages composed of selected channels targeting specific customer segments, have the potential to attract elusive younger consumers to pay-TV, according to the latest market study by Altman Vilandrie & Company. However, their survey also finds that two-thirds of older consumers, typically the most loyal subscribers of legacy pay-TV, say they are wasting money for channels they don’t use -- so, skinny bundles could cannibalize the service provider's existing subscriber...

Several television broadcasters and pay-TV providers have attempted to match over-the-top (OTT) video by offering their own online services. Most notable is the move by HBO to offer a subscription service to their TV shows via HBO Now. Revenues from subscription video on demand (SVOD) services, such as Netflix and Amazon, are set to more than double from $14.6 billion this year, to $34.6 billion in 2021. Netflix will now grow its U.S. subscriber base to be similar in size with leading traditional pay-TV service providers. Ongoing SVOD Market Development According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, SVOD providers will see substantial returns on their expansion and growth strategies, as more countries and markets move to this method of video consumption. And, as more consumers adopt the move away from the old linear, scheduled TV model. While SVOD continues to draw customers away from traditional pay-TV providers, legacy networks are now seeking to diversify and a...

Video entertainment in the typical American home has changed dramatically during the last few years. Streaming subscription video content to a TV set is now commonplace. There are several market drivers that are apparent, as a result of the consumer transition to over-the-top (OTT) video. The incumbent service providers had initially ignored the trend. Pay-TV providers had hoped that the baby-boomers would continue to tolerate perpetual price increases. Television broadcasters assumed that millennials would simply learn to accept the twenty minutes of commercial advertising that interrupts every hour of TV entertainment. In hindsight, both of these scenarios actually helped to fuel the introduction, market development and ongoing adoption of alternative -- often much lower-cost and more appealing -- video entertainment offerings. "Ownership of connected televisions and streaming media players is accelerating while the availability of streaming content is simultaneously expan...

Video entertainment viewing in the typical American household has evolved. Gone are the days where broadcast television gained the lion's share of consumer attention. Meanwhile, legacy pay-TV services have struggled to keep pace with shifting customer preferences and numerous alternative lower-cost offerings. Average monthly spending on subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services among U.S. broadband households increased from $3.71 per month in 2012 to $6.19 per month in 2015, according to the latest market study by Parks Associates. Parks examined new business models emerging from the increasing consumption of over-the-top (OTT) content in the American video entertainment market -- including new experiments in content windowing. How the OTT Trend Disrupted the Market "Multiple content players have held onto traditional content windowing strategies for years, but OTT technologies and emerging business models have finally forced these companies to experiment with new w...

As the video entertainment market evolves in America, the traditional pay-TV service providers are seeking to maintain their subscriber base in the face of rising operational costs related to content, which often directly translates into higher service fees for their customers. Meanwhile, short-term promotional discounts are still being applied to attract potential new customers to the traditional pay-TV offerings. But it's becoming increasing difficult to compete with the value-based pricing of the over-the-top (OTT) streaming video services (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) . According to the latest market study by Leichtman Research Group (LRG), 83 percent of all U.S. households nationwide subscribe to some form of pay-TV service. That being said, the percentage of households that subscribe to a pay-TV service is down from 87 percent in 2010. "Changes in the dynamics of the pay-TV industry are not driven just by those exiting the category, but also those coming into the category,...

Digital entertainment now encompasses the inclusive aspect of services found on many smartphones, media tablets and connected TV sets. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research , the mobile and online entertainment industry will reach revenues in excess of $300 billion annually by 2019 -- that's up from $195 billion this year. The research observed that growth in the market would be driven by increased adoption of online television and video entertainment services, with the industry accounting for more than 60 percent of the net increase in market value over the next 5 years. The new study also found that Over-the-Top (OTT) video service providers -- such as Netflix and Hulu -- offer an attractive combination of third-party and home-grown content, with a subscription-based model that is supplanting the legacy on-demand pay-per-view approach. The research also found that while video game revenue will capture the lion's share of the digital entertainment m...

Following the launch of the Netflix and Hulu video streaming services in America, most savvy industry analysts knew that while it wasn't clear how long it would take for these offerings to gain momentum, one thing was blatantly obvious -- the disruption of the legacy pay-TV model had begun. Fast-forward to today, North America already had 50.6 million subscription video on demand (SVOD) homes -- for movie and TV services only, excluding sports -- by end-2014. That SVOD adoption translates to 38.8 percent of all TV households and 48.1 percent of fixed broadband homes, according to the latest market study by Digital TV Research . They have assessed that this market penetration represents considerable growth since 2010, when there were just 16.7 million SVOD homes -- that was about 13% of all TV households. Therefore, it has been said that the North American region is the world's most mature for SVOD services. However, the disruption in the North American video entertainme...

The low-cost set-top boxes used with over-the-top video entertainment services, such as Netflix and Hulu, were instrumental in early market development -- prior to the availability of internet-enabled Smart TV sets. Market demand is still strong. Streaming media players were added to 6 million American homes over the past year, increasing ownership penetration to 17 percent of U.S. Internet households in the second quarter (Q2) of 2014, according to the latest market study by The NPD Group. Moreover, streaming media player ownership is expected to increase to 39 percent of U.S. Internet households by the beginning of 2017. The current, and future, penetration increases are being driven by three main factors; more brands in the market, more software apps, and lower device prices. "In its infancy, the streaming media player market had two major players driving growth; Apple and Roku – now we have four relevant hardware manufacturers with the addition of Amazon Fire TV and Go...

While much of the recent market research explores in-home usage of online video from a Smart or Connected TV point of view, today the vast majority of television sets are not enabled for broadband connectivity and internet access. The growth of over-the-top (OTT) video entertainment services, such as Netflix and Hulu, is attracting attention to consumer electronics (CE) products that can support streaming media services -- while connected to a legacy TV set. One of these CE products -- the streaming media player -- has enjoyed significant growth over the past two years. Multimedia Research Group ( MRG ) has released its latest forecast on the worldwide streaming media player market. The upside market potential is significant, as more people seek ways to migrate their online video viewing from their notebook PC to their primary TV set. Streaming media players, sometimes called OTT set-top boxes or digital media adapters, consist of products such as the Apple TV, the WD TV Live, ...

If you've been following the pay-TV adoption trend in the North American marketplace, then you may have assumed that the same story of declining subscribers was happening across the globe. But that's not true. The global pay-TV market actually continues to grow in a few select markets -- despite the ongoing decline in the North America pay-TV market during 2012. ABI Research forecasts that global pay TV subscribers will reach 858.1 million at the end of 2012 -- that's a 5 percent year-on-year increment from 2011. The key growth will be driven by the Asia-Pacific market, which is expected to add more than 27 million subscribers in 2012. That being said, the cable TV operators in United States have been facing a continuous decline in pay-TV subscribers. In the first two quarters of 2012, cable TV operators lost nearly 800 thousand subscribers. The U.S. cable TV broadband subscriber base has continued to grow -- the internet access market opportunity is now the focal p...

comScore released data showing that more than 180 million U.S. Internet users watched 36.6 billion online content videos in May 2012. Moreover, online video advertising results posted another month of record-breaking gains, surpassing the 10-billion mark for the first time on record. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in May with 151.7 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 57.8 million, VEVO with 48.3 million, Microsoft Sites with 44.4 million and Facebook.com with 44.3 million. Nearly 36.6 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 17.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 888 million and Yahoo! Sites with 845 million. The average viewer watched 21.9 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.7 hours) and Hulu (4.2 hours) earning the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. Americans viewed an all-time h...

comScore released data showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in April, 2012. Video ads saw another record-breaking month with nearly 9.5 billion -- that's about 1 in 5 videos viewed online in April. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in April with 157.7 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 53.6 million, VEVO with 49.5 million, Facebook.com with 44.3 million and Microsoft Sites with 42.8 million. Nearly 37 billion video views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 17 billion, followed by Hulu with 901 million and Yahoo! Sites with 742 million. The average viewer watched 21.8 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.2 hours) and Hulu (3.8 hours) earning the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. Americans viewed 9.5 billion video ads in April, representing anoth...

comScore released new market data showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in March 2012, while video advertising topped 8 billion for the first time on record. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in March with 146.1 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 60.6 million, VEVO with 51.3 million, Facebook.com with 45.1 million and Viacom Digital with 44.3 million. Nearly 37 billion video views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 15.7 billion, followed by Hulu with 1 billion and Yahoo! Sites with 815 million. The average viewer watched 21.7 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.1 hours) and Hulu (4.6 hours) posting the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. Americans viewed more than 8.3 billion video ads in March, representing an all-time high, with Hulu delivering an...

comScore released data from their latest market study showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion videos of online video content in January. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in January with 152 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 51.5 million, Yahoo! Sites with 49.2 million, Viacom Digital with 48.1 million and Facebook.com with 45.1 million. Nearly 40 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 18.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 877 million and VEVO with 717 million. The average viewer watched 22.6 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.5 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. Americans viewed 5.6 billion video ads in January, with Hulu delivering the highest number of video ad impressions at 1.4 billion. Adap.tv ranked second over...

Online video consumption reached record highs during 2011. The last month of the year also ended on a high note. comScore released data showing that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December of 2011 for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer. That same U.S. Internet audience viewed a combined total of 43.5 billion videos. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in December with 157.2 million unique viewers, while VEVO ranked second with 53.7 million. Yahoo! Sites ranked third with 53.3 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 45.8 million and Facebook.com with 42 million. More than 43 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 21.9 billion. The average viewer watched 23.2 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7.9 hours) and Hulu (3 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten propert...

If there's a limit to the upside growth potential of online video consumption, then apparently it's still nowhere in sight. comScore released data showing that 184 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in October for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience viewed 42.6 billion videos, representing an all-time high. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in October with 161 million unique viewers and reached a record high of 20.9 billion videos viewed. Facebook.com ranked second with 59.8 million viewers, followed by VEVO with 57 million, Microsoft Sites with 49.1 million and Viacom Digital with 48.2 million. More than 42 billion videos were viewed during the month, with the average viewer watching a record 21.1 hours. Google Sites demonstrated the highest engagement with 7.1 hours per viewer. Americans viewed 7.5 billion video ads in October, with Hul...

comScore released data showing that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in September for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in 39.8 billion video views. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in September with 161 million unique viewers, while VEVO ranked second with 57.3 million. Microsoft Sites climbed to the #3 position with 54 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 53.4 million and Facebook.com with 49.9 million. Nearly 40 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 18.6 billion. The average viewer watched a record 19.5 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (6.3 hours) also demonstrating the highest engagement. Americans viewed more than 6.8 billion video ads in September, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1 billio...