Quote:
Originally Posted by harry_hitch
Apologies for deleting the politics, because as you say, it is off topic, and I am taking up enough space.
You may think the jury is out on the cost of streaming services, but as it stands in the States (based on your link), it is very expensive just to get anywhere near the content we get from Sky etc from just a few of the most popular streaming services at this precise moment.
People may well pick and choose from the various streaming services, but if I was in charge of a streaming company, I would want a very constant stream of income coming into my business. How could any company survive if it's sole income comes when the people who like their streaming offering only intermittently pay £8.99 a month? It simply can not happen. If we follow your logic, then the vast majority of people will have to take the ad free option. This will have to happen in your idea of the future, because the companies will need that ad revenue to give them their guaranteed monthly income. The streaming company will then have to decide how much more money they get through advertising, compared to the £120 (12 x £10 a month) they will get from a paying punter like yourself. I imagine there will be a massive gap between the money the free service gets compared to what you pay, and that gap will be lost revenue - pure and simple, they are not a charity after all. That lost revenue will have to come from somewhere. If they don't allow advertising, it will only come from increased subscription.
Lets say your idea works though, don't forget the more the services vie for peoples money, the more exclusives they have to produce. That will raise costs more and more. That will then more ads for the free service to cover the costs, and a same amount will have to be added for subscriptions. It will be easier for each streaming service to get £10 a month from 5 companies paying £2 each per ad, than it will be to get an extra £10 a month from you. I may be missing something completely obvious from these scenarios (and I welcome your thoughts negating mine) but I don't see how it won't end up with one of these scenarios. Either way, subscriptions will very be expensive without ad's.
I am not sure how you don't get ad's on Now TV - you are lucky if you don't. A quick FFW through the latest catch up episodes of Elementary, 100 Code, Madam Sectretary, The Knick and the last episode of Blue Bloods all had ads at the start and around the 30 min mark. A league of their own only had ads at the start. (Elemantary, A league of their own, 100 code, Blue Bloods and Madam Secretary are all on the featured page of Sky Catch up). As I have stated before Amazon have ad's on their website and, like Sky, are obviously heavily subsiding their streaming services. Most likely so they can get a loyal customer base before unleashing plenty of ads on the services, but I know (and am happy for) you to disagree with my thoughts on this.
You also mention about streaming services offering more variety than pay TV providers. As I have asked before, what would Netflix do if they lost all their back catalogue because all the other content owners wanted exclusive rights to their content (including their films)?
I am happy to have streaming services in the world, and you will never get them all on one box, regardless of what you think VM should do. Thankfully, I can still afford Netflix and it still provides great value, and could afford Amazon it I wanted. I just don't think they will kill off liner TV.
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You question how streaming services can survive on £8.99 per month subscriptions, even though Netflix are doing so now! As far as people flitting in and out of the service is concerned, they can deter such practices by charging an annual fee, as Amazon do.
The streaming services with commercials that won't fast forward tend to be provided by our terrestrials and our pay TV services. I think the model used by the big streaming companies in future will be mainly subscription based or pay per view.
I don't agree with you on the comparison of content between what is on Sky and what is on the streaming services. How, for example, can you say that Sky has more than the UK version of Netflix? I have picked out so much from Netflix that I want to see, I doubt I'll ever get round to exhausting that list, and they are adding stuff all the time, with the added bonus of no reality shows!
I don't understand your comment about advertising on Amazon - but I get Amazon Prime Instant Video, and I can assure you that there are no commercials on there!
As for Now TV, I think you are referring to the broadcast TV part of it, which of course does contain adverts as it is the same as tuning into the channels via satellite or cable. However, the main part (and purpose) of Now TV is for the streaming of videos, and all of this is ad free. If the streaming service companies were to bombard us with unskippable ads, people would be put off and they would look for alternatives. The Sky catch up service is a 'free' add-on for their broadcast channels and this is why there are commercials on it.
The search will be on in earnest for exclusives, and the streaming services will sucking everything up and leave nothing for our broadcast TV channels, which presumably explains the recent trend towards buying up studios and their newly found obsession with their new dramas.
As for what would happen if Netflix lost all their content... I think our terrestrials are more worried about such an eventuality than Netflix!!