2015 Australia - Video Streaming - VOD, IPTV, Mobile TV

Competition is hotting up in the Video Entertainment market

Videostreaming is finally taking off with more and better broadband coming available to more and more people. There has been an explosion in video applications over broadband, they are now being used by many different industries for advertising, marketing, demonstration, entertainment and communication purposes.

Online video streaming or IPTV already makes up the largest component of internet traffic, and is set to continue growing faster than other digital formats.

Unlike in the traditional video entertainment industry, were industry concentration is the name of the game, streaming video is enjoying a far more healthier level of competition as more and more companies enter this extremely promising market. The most successful of these has been US-based Netflix. Since 2010, it has been gradually expanding outside of its domestic market, and has seen its international subscriber base triple between 2012 and 2014. In early 2015 it also entered the Australian market and the threat of its arrival along has seen massive changes to the market here with lower prices, more choice and increased content.

Competition in the Video Entertainment market has reached fever pitch. Driven by the popularity of Netflix  all players in the Australian entertainment market were put on full alert. Belatedly Foxtel lowered the price for its pay TV service to address affordability concerns, but it remains a premium service and it will be interesting to see if this finally leads to some real growth for the company. Its triple play model will also address the relative high churn the company is still facing. Telstra and Foxtel are also going to compete head on with each other, aimed at combined beating the rest of the competition.

Access to premium content will continue to be a key issue for companies such as FetchTV, STAN and indeed also Netflix Australia, as News Corp (Foxtel) has well and truly tied up this market. Overtime those exclusivity contracts will need to be renewed and that will be the time when others will start claiming their share of the premium content market. In the meantime  FetchTV is positioning itself as the alternative to Telstra and Foxtel and is delivering the best one-stop-shop service on a very user-friendly platform.

The telecom and ISP players in the market, provide their video streaming services to their customers uncapped, so this doesn’t count against their broadband downloading limitations.

TV series rather than movies are driving the current developments. Sport remains tightly controlled by Foxtel and they have so far no serious competition from the video streaming companies. Movie content available – under the basic IPTV subscription - remains mostly B- or C-rated; A rated material and new releases are only available at extra charges. BuddeComm remains pessimistic about the fragmentation of the  proprietary IPTV business models of most of the players. We predict that consolidation will have to happen.

By far the largest growth in video entertainment comes from user-generated content services such as YouTube, Facebook and a whole new range of services of short, and even super-short, videos. Catch-up TV would be the second largest category.

Mobile TV/video is forecast to grow strongly, although not quite as dramatically as initially expected. Due to poor data allowance and steep prices, users tend to watch mobile video over WiFi more than over a cellular network.

These developments will significantly influence IPTV developments and future models will therefore have to be substantially different from those of today. The best way to envisage this is to look at the smart devices which provide ‘app-like’ interfaces to new content services that supply instant streaming.

There is a correlation between the availability of high-speed broadband and IPTV usage and it is envisaged that further increases in high-speed broadband penetration will drive new IPTV developments. The rapid growth of smartphones and tablets is also giving this market a boost, as well as new business models such as pay-per-view. New IPTV services are already being streamed over these devices as well as over gaming devices.

The interest in video streaming services has also led to an increase in online advertising. This is not limited to the fixed networks, also the mobile networks are enjoying continuous growth advertising revenues.

The report also includes extensive chapters on Mobile TV and Digital Radio.

Companies mentioned in this report include:

Telstra, Optus, Internode, TransACT, TPG, engin, FOXTEL, VOD, Quickflix, Netflix, ABC, Ninemsn, Yahoo!7TV, Hulu, iiNet, SBS, Seven Media, AARNet, Apple, BBC, FetchTV, Getflix, Google TV, Hoyts, Netbay, Tabcorp, Ten Network, YouTube, John Fairfax, Nine Network, STAN, Southern Cross Austereo, Australian Radio Network (ARN), DMG, Macquarie Radio Network, Chemist Warehouse, Coles, Community Broadcasting, Vodafone, FANGO, myTVR, Beem and Zeebox.