Experts anticipated major growth for the entertainment industry in the 21st century. And true to predictions, the past decades have seen music, sports, TV, film, and gaming transform in previously unimaginable ways. In the past decade, control over content, how it is produced, and when it is consumed has shifted from the who’s who of Hollywood to content creators and streaming services. People stream movies on Netflix now that they would have had to watch in the cinema. Overall, streaming has infused entertainment
with mobility, originality, and variety. In this article, we look at how streaming services are redefining entertainment today.
Streaming in Numbers
Streaming is not yet the powerhouse traditional entertainment is but it is indisputable that it is drawing in bigger audiences by the year. According to recent data from Nielsen’s The Gauge, streaming received an all-time-high viewership in this past month. June saw streaming bring in 37.7 percent of all TV usage, beating out broadcast TV at 20.8 percent and cable at 30.6 percent.
Of all the streaming platforms involved, YouTube received more viewers, with a leading 8.8 percent viewership. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video followed at 8.2, 3.5, and 3.2 percent. The numbers for Netflix and YouTube were the highest they have ever been thus far.
This news cast a shadow of uncertainty over broadcast TV, whose viewership share fell to its lowest mark in history at 6.6 percent. Overall, broadcast viewership had dropped 5.6 percent this year and cable has experienced a whopping 11.6 percent audience loss.
Expanding Markets
But if you use streaming services, you know they are more than a replacement for traditional TV. Streaming technology has expanded its reach beyond film to enter similarly-blossoming sectors like sports, gaming, and iGaming – that is, sports betting and online casinos. It is because of streaming technology in trustworthy online casinos that gamers can now interact with live dealers and play against other gamers online, in-real time. Streaming is also the lifeblood of the esports industry.
In fact, a significant chunk of the viewership on platforms like YouTube and Twitch are gamers and gaming fans looking for game content. To be precise, Insider Intelligence reports that more than 29.8 million people streamed esports content in the US in 2022. Esports viewers on YouTube and Twitch averaged 100 minutes of viewing time per visit and of the audience, only 5 in 10 are actual gamers.
This shows that the streaming market is formidable on its own, so much so that it is drawing non-gamer audiences to gaming content. And the growth is international.
In Asia, streaming services have taken over entertainment. In 2020, video streaming subscriptions in India grew to 59.6 million from 4.5 million in 2017. Growth was recorded in other countries as well, with the Philippines at 71 percent growth and Thailand at 130 percent.
Mobility in Entertainment
Experts agree that the key driver for this success if the mobility streaming services offer users. Data shows that most consumers access streaming platforms through mobile devices, primarily their phones, tablets, and PCs. This speaks to a growing need by millennials to consume content on the go, anywhere, and at any time – a need that major players are keen to meet.
In 2019, for instance, Netflix launched a mobile-only subscription plan in India that allows users to stream content on their mobile devices for $3 or less. The company launched a similar program in Malaysia only a year after Telefónica allowed seamless Netflix access in Latin America.
In Africa, Netflix is available in a free-to-stream mobile plan in countries like Kenya and is actively working with telecommunication providers to roll out similar plans in other countries.
New Channels for Creativity
The fact that major streaming platforms are venturing into new and overlapping markets is good news for creators. Streaming has widened entertainment so that celebrities today are not just the faces you see in movies – they are also social media influencers, digital content creators, and professional gamers.
The idea is that streaming platforms have infused the creativity sector with more freedom. Unlike traditional entertainment, creators in this space have near-complete control over their projects. Actors and characters can make decisions about their roles and artists have more than enough tools to shoot, edit, distribute, and market their own work.
It is possible because of this that in 2020, according to Forbes, more than 50 million people across the globe identified as content creators and 2 million of this number were professional artists with 6-figure revenue streams on Twitch, YouTube, and Instagram.
The growth of the streaming and digital content market could also be why Bob Iger, Disney CEO, is pondering selling ABC and other traditional TV holdings of the company.
Wrapping Up: Cross-Border Vs Local Content
Streaming services are undoubtedly popular and getting more popular by the day. An annual survey shows that 50 percent of respondents were subscribed to a streaming service in 2020. And as the sector continues to make entertainment more mobile, diverse, original, and democratic, different countries are tapping into their potential for content creation. Major streaming platforms are in turn rising to the challenge by allowing previously ignored markets to get their content exposed to international audiences. It is interesting to see the balance between typically western content and local productions on streaming platforms and this global approach is perhaps behind the success of streaming.