[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by jfman

You've completely missed Andrew's point.

Apple want to push Apple
Netflix wants to push Netflix
Amazon wants to push Amazon.

None of them have any incentive to be this altruistic platform offering all of the content in a neutral manner. For the same reason your Sky EPG has all of the Sky channels near the top (with the exception of PSBs).

Yes, and if you recognise that many people have at least two or three streamers, you want your subscribers to be constantly reminded of their content that they want to see by being reminded of those programmes through their watchlists.

If two streamers are integrated but the third isn’t, who do you think is going to get less hits?

---------- Post added at 20:14 ---------- Previous post was at 20:10 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

OB, as per, you’re arguing that black is white and up is down, on the basis of your own, extremely limited, experience and very personal preferences.

As with most aspects of this topic, we have been here before, at some point, though frankly I lack the will to go and search for it. What’s at issue here is commoditisation. What service are you actually buying? A load of streamed TV shows from Virgin Media or a streaming experience provided by Netflix, or Apple, or whoever?

What you’re demanding is commoditisation of content in favour of a single, Virgin Media branded experience. But streamers that have invested a fortune in their brand awareness have absolutely no incentive at all to sacrifice that to the Virgin Media EPG. Each streamer has a unique character, driven by its app functionality and its content acquisition strategy. Netflix, in my opinion, is particularly strong on this point.

Amazon Prime can overcome this to a great extent as long as it’s the only streaming brand doing full integration. As Amazon commissions far less original content than Netflix, has a much smaller free-to-members back catalogue than Disney, and lacks the high-end reputation of Apple, there was a distinct commercial advantage in it going down the integration route. Certainly on our living room TV, which has all of the major streamers but no integration, Prime is the least accessed of the lot.

Commoditisation is what all brands fear and what they all expend a great deal of effort trying to avoid. This is why, for example, you will occasionally see a member of Walkers staff surveying the crisp aisle in your local supermarket. Walkers is a major brand and it has the clout, which many smaller player lack, to dictate even to the likes of Asda and Tesco, how their product is to be displayed. Many smaller brands get whatever placement they are given and often have to make sale-or-rebate promises to the supermarkets in order to get any shelf space at all.

Netflix has no incentive to surrender control of its brand to a search engine in your 360 box. The personal preferences of some random Old Boy are really irrelevant here. At the scale they are interested in (I.e. the entire viewing market, not your lounge) there is greater value in maintaining brand strength and awareness.

I don’t buy that at all, Chris. As far as branding is concerned, when you pick a programme from the watchlist, the system takes you to the streamer’s logo, so it is very clear who it is providing the content.

This is not just me saying this - there have been a number of findings that viewers want everything in one box. Those streamers who don’t promote this will ultimately lose out on viewers.