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Tag: streaming video subscription

  • Streaming Video on the Rise as Premium Channels See Subscriptions Fall

    Streaming Video on the Rise as Premium Channels See Subscriptions Fall

    Though cable companies are still dragging their feet, it is now clear that streaming video is the future of television. Subscriptions for streaming video services such as Netflix and Hulu are rising fast and hardware manufacturers are preparing to flood consumer markets with internet-connected video devices in the coming years. The WWE, of all organizations, has just paved the way for sports organizations to take their programming directly to consumers through a streaming subscription service.

    Market research firm NPD Group today released a new report showing that the percentage of U.S. internet households subscribing to premium TV channels such as HBO and Showtime declined to 32% as of August 2013, down 6% from the 38% of households that subscribed back in March 2012. At the same time streaming video subscriptions (what NPD refers to as subscription video-on-demand services) for those same households rose 4% from March 2012 to hit 27% as of last August.

    According to the report, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services made up a full 71% of all digital-video transactions during 2013. The segment is now the fastest-growing type of digital acquisition according to NPD’s numbers.

    “As SVOD services have gained momentum, it’s clear that some consumers are trimming their premium-TV subscriptions,” said Russ Crupnick, SVP of industry analysis at NPD. “As SVOD increasingly strives to become a channel itself, viewers might consider it to be an adequate substitution for other premium channels, or perhaps they are switching to economize on their time and money spent.”

  • YouTube Subscriptions May be the Future

    YouTube Subscriptions May be the Future

    Reuters is reporting that YouTube may consider selling subscriptions to viewers sometime in the near future. Speaking at the Reuters Media and Technology Summit, Salar Kamangar, CEO of YouTube and senior vice president of video at Google, said that smaller cable channels might have a place on YouTube, and could sell subscriptions through an a la carte option. He also stated that some of YouTube’s “top content creators” want to be able to sell subscriptions as well. Kamangar said the company is talking about subscription options “very carefully.”

    The cable channels Kamangar mentioned are channels that have a small audience, and so don’t command many, if any, fees from cable distributors. These channels would lose little by offering their content directly through a YouTube subscription. Obviously, this is a shot across the bow of the cable industry, which is fighting as hard as it can to not simply become another utility industry, pumping out internet connections to homes the way electricity companies or water companies provide their products. Just this week, the U.S. Department of Justice began investigating cable companies for possible anti-competitive practices with regards to Netflix and Hulu.

    As for content creators on YouTube, it’s likely that few of them would be able to charge subscription fees on their own. Groups of them could team up, though, creating their own channels. Recently, more for-profit YouTube channel ventures have been popping up, such as Felecia Day’s Geek and Sundry.

    I suspect Kamangar said YouTube was discussing the prospect “very carefully” because it knows the uproar that would be caused if YouTube users were suddenly asked to pay for content that used to be free. Still, if YouTube can gather up enough quality content to make it work, it would be another step closer to breaking the cable company monopolies in the U.S. And when that finally happens, premium-quality channels such as HBO can finally be free to sell their content directly to willing customers, even without YouTube.

    (via Reuters)

  • YouTube Considers Subscription Content

    YouTube Considers Subscription Content

    YouTube might be considering adding subscription content to its streaming platform, in a bid to attract video from larger media corporations. Any potential deal wouldn’t affect existing content with any sort of paywall, but YouTube might seek to incorporate live sports, music and entertainment offerings, according to the New York Post.

    It was recently reported that historically free video platform Hulu is moving toward having its users authenticate their accounts by entering in a pay-service account number from satellite or cable providers. Pay service Netflix has produced a new season of Arrested Development, and even Amazon has been said to be in talks regarding creating an original series of its own. No word on whether YouTube might delve into creating original content, but big media companies have been weary of posting their shows on the platform for free, considering YouTube’s ad-only business model, regardless of the fact that its 800 million users stream about three billion hours of video per month, with projected ad sales of $2 billion to $3 billion per year.

    Google-owned YouTube presently has a movie rental service, and also streams pay-per-view cricket games via a partnership with WillowTV. CEO Salar Kamangar hinted at a possible premium subscription service at an industry event in January – “We’re a media platform and we want to have a business model that media partners demand.”

    A YouTube spokesperson commented on the matter, “We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models. The important thing is that, regardless of the model, our creators succeed on the platform and viewers find more content to watch”, adding “There are a lot of our content creators that believe they would benefit from subscriptions.”