The Fierce Streaming Wars

COVID has changed media forever, & acted as a catalyst in the growth of streaming platforms. As countries went into lockdown, movie theatres, concert halls, & sporting events were shut down. So what can people do for entertainment? For many, more time at home results in watching more movies, TV shows, & other content. This increased appetite for video content has ramped up the battle between streaming platforms.

As I write this blog, Amazon is in talks to acquire MGM Studios for $9 billion, & AT&T has merged it's media assets, WarnerMedia, with Discovery Inc. to form an entity worth $140 billion. This is a sign of new-age media consolidation, & in the media world, content is king. Controlling cinema stopped being just about who had the biggest box-office or massive hit during prime-time. A turf war over IP erupted to see who could bulk up their streaming service with the best content.

Major Streaming Players Are:- WarnerMedia's HBO Max, Viacom's CBS All-Access, Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, Apple TV+, Lionsgate's Starz.

Big media corporations, which previously licensed their content to Netflix, started pulling it back and launched bespoke services of their own. The WarnerMedia-Discovery merger is essentially the integration of two catalogs of content to create a media juggernaut. Discovery is well known for it's reality-TV units, such as Animal Planet, TLC, & Food Network, and it also owns rights to broadcast the Olympics, & PGA Tour. WarnerMedia owns DC Films, Warner Bros. Studios, Cartoon Network, HBO, & CNN. The streaming service formed by the merger will have the best of both worlds.

Trillion-dollar giants, Amazon & Apple are aggressively expanding into media. Amazon has created synergies between it's media business & other offerings. An Amazon Prime subscription gives you access to overnight delivery, music & video-game (Amazon owns Twitch) platforms, & a streaming platform. Amazon has lagged behind big media companies in original content. The MGM acquisition will give it access to the James Bond, & Rocky franchises. Apple has done something similar with Apple One, which gives you access to Apple TV+, News, Fitness+, & iCloud storage.

The first-half of 2020 was brutal for Disney (it's stock fell by 30%). It's theme-parks, cruises shut down indefinitely, & most of it's productions were delayed. Disney announced a reorganisation of it's media business, with a greater focus on streaming. Successful movies, & shows such as The Mandalorian, Soul, debuted on Disney+. In 2021, Sony signed a deal with Disney to bring most of films, such as Spider-Man & Jumanji, in the US on Disney+. Disney+ now has 100 million paid subscribers, and enjoys a similar market share as Netflix.

Netflix is still the Big-Daddy of streaming platforms. Perhaps the biggest advantage of Netflix is it's worldwide access. Additionally, Netflix has curated an impressive content pipeline such as The Crown, Narcos, & Sacred Games. Netflix has 203 million paid subscribers. Comcast's NBCUniversal which owns Universal Studios, CNBC, DreamWorks is developing a streaming platform of it's own called Peacock. Peacock has 42 million subscribers, and has a significant edge over it's competitors. Comcast is a telecom giant, & can vertically integrate it's media offerings with it's cable business.

These media M&As haven't helped all companies. Smaller players such as Lionsgate, & AMC Networks do not have the capital, or resources to create streaming platforms of their own. Although they own illustrious movie titles, the volume of content isn't enough. Apple is trying to expand it's content library, & the $3.5 billion Lionsgate is a good acquisition candidate. ViacomCBS is a sub-scale company, and a possible acquisition target. Paramount Pictures is the jewel of Viacom's portfolio, & can fetch a significant premium.

OTT platforms are here to stay. Cable TV is diminishing, legacy media corporations are spending billions on original content, & Big Tech is entering the race. A decade ago, traditional media dubbed Netflix as a bubble, as they believed cable TV was the future. Thus, Netflix for a long time enjoyed majority. Now, streaming has transformed into an intense competition. According to me, there isn't going to be one definite winner, & streaming platforms will have to learn to exist parallelly. Just like there's more than one auto manufacturer, there will be more than one streaming service. The marketplace isn't going to result in one provider. As long as there is demand, there will be more than one company providing it.

We consumers are the beneficiaries of the war. More platforms, results in more content. We ultimately make the decision of which subscription to buy. As long as media companies keep their viewers engaged, the war won't cause any deaths.

Thankyou for reading!