Mipcom: New Report on Changing TV, Cable, OTT Landscape Lists Most Powerful Global Distributors
CANNES, France – Comcast, Time Warner, Sky, Germany’s Kabel Deutschland, India’s Sun Direct, France’s Orange, Mexico’s TelMex and China Telecom rank as the world’s most powerful players in global distribution, according to a study unveiled by Eurodata TV Worldwide at Mipcom.
The survey also revealed that since the launch of Netflix in 2010, at least 50 new mainstream SVOD platforms have launched around the world. Meanwhile, the number of niche services targeting specific demographics such as kids has also boomed, including children-skewing services such as Buddies TV in China, Kidoodle TV in Canada, PlayKids in Latin America, as well as U.K. platform Hopster, which operates globally.
Sahar Baghery, who heads up global research and content strategy at Eurodata TV Worldwide, also highlighted the growing importance of carriage deals for streaming services aiming to expand their global presence and reach more households. The study cited Netflix’s recent deal with Liberty Global to make the streaming giant available on set-top boxes in more than 30 countries.
Multi-screen viewing habits are also increasingly at the core of content providers’ strategies, especially in Asia, “where smartphones have become like a third hand,” said Baghery.
In China, 75% of online video viewers watched a video on a smartphone in 2015, while in South Korea, 50% of 16-64-year-olds said they watched videos on a mobile. In Japan, more than 60% of residents have used an online service to watch TV or movies.
In France, the OTT landscape is also taking shape with the recent launch of Molotov TV, a new OTT service dubbed as the Spotify of television, regrouping the live and on-demand content of 35 channels on a free-mium model. Also in France, Vivendi just rolled out Studio Plus, a mobile-native service featuring premium short-format series that will be available in six languages across 20 countries in Europe and Latin America by year’s end. Vivendi will next target India and African countries with the app, according to Eurodata TV Worldwide.
During her presentation at Mipcom, Baghery also discussed YouTube’s plans to bow YouTube Unplugged, a bundled content OTT service, in 2017.
“We don’t have a lot of details yet about YouTube Unplugged, but the rumors are talking about a price around $40 for all channels and services, and they will likely allow people to subscribe by genre for a lower price,” said Baghery, who added that YouTube was in talks with CBS, Viacom, NBC, ESPN, Fox and ABC, among others.
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