Mexico City / 05.10.2023 02:09:22
There is no conclusive data that affirms a “hegemony” of consumption or content on demand. According to Ericsson, on-demand content, that is, ‘non-linear’, represents 50% of total audiovisual content consumption. This means that the other 50% of audiovisual content consumption has to do with that which is broadcast live or directly, that is, in a ‘linear’ manner, the same thing that is offered on both traditional television (commercial, open and paid) as in digital multicasting, either on streaming platforms with sports (ESPN and FOX Sports, Disney) and also with live streaming broadcasts (live or direct) on social networks, such as Facebook, YouTube , Twitter, and TikTok. The debates between candidates, especially presidential ones; sports events (such as the Super Bowl, the Soccer World Cup, etc.); or the coverage of news events of great social relevance, maintains an important predilection as linear consumption, that is, it is ‘live’ or ‘direct’.
Reed Hasting, the CEO of Netflix, stated a couple of years ago, when they were a hegemonic digital streaming platform, that the only competition or visible obstacle (difficulty) they had in front of them was “the dream” of the people. That is, its subscribers could consume an infinite number of contents available on their billboard or audiovisual catalog. Faced with this, a new phenomenon of audiovisual consumption arose: the ‘television binge’, which refers to the fact of consuming just one Season of a Television Series, in 14, 16 or 24 hours or a weekend, punishing sleep. of the audience due to their eagerness to finish watching the series.
However, today new challenges are recognized: i) the exchange of passwords to consume video on OTTs [de acuerdo con diversos estudios, aproximadamente, el 50% de los suscriptores a una OTT lo hacen (El País, 2023)]; ii) the increasing difficulty of increasing its number of subscribers at an accelerated pace; iii) ensure subscriber loyalty, since, now, a good part of its consumers alternate subscriptions to various OTTs every month, and return to it when a series or content of interest to them has been released. [de acuerdo con diversos estudios, aproximadamente, un 35% de los usuarios de OTT lo hacen de manera frecuente (El Mundo: 2023)]; iv) competition from a variety of OTT platforms in the market; and v) and also, how all this impacts the way of financing large audiovisual productions, in the format of television series and feature films, with practically the same budget.
Note that Netflix’s most expensive series, The Crown, a biopic of Queen Elizabeth, had a production cost of $13 million for each episode! Something similar happened with Game of Thrones, which recorded a production cost of 15 million dollars for each episode. However, as has been said in numerous programs and magazines, the “king” in the digital age of audiovisuals continues to be the content. To compete in a multiverse of streaming and OTT audiovisual content and platforms, better productions are needed, which translates into greater investments, which results in the audiovisual consumer being the greatest beneficiary. This is because now the differentiating element, or the competitive advantage of an OTT platform, is the “exclusive content” as PWC points out. Exclusivity plays an important role in helping OTTs attract audiences to their streaming platforms.
It should be noted that, according to PWC, all OTT platforms, last year (2022), spent $230 billion on productions and purchases of licenses and broadcasting rights (sports). Only Netflix and Disney each plan to spend 20 billion this year (2023) on productions, purchase of content licenses and transmission rights only for their OTT platforms. Regarding the OTT business model, several scholars in the field point out that everything points to the trend towards the ‘mega merger’ of streaming or digital OTT services to reach a subscription to a ‘super platform’ that brings together several broader diversity in its offer.
2023-10-05 09:41:22
#Outlived #live #television #model
