We are seeing massive disruption in the streaming race.
While the big players fight it out, there are other entrants. The fragmentation that is taking place only mounts. We are starting to see the impact.
It gets very interesting when we consider the television manufacturers are getting into the act. Leading the charge is Roku, which announced it earnings. Within those numbers were some very interesting facts about how things are progressing.
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Streaming Is Fragmenting
We know about Disney, Netflix, and Paramount. These are just a handful of the big name streaming entities out there. It appears that Netflix is the only one of the major streaming entities that is making any money. Even still, their future could be uncertain.
Like most things in entertainment, we are seeing the fragmenting of this segment within the industry. It is a topic that we discussed at length. Roku provides some numbers to back it up.
The platform is becoming even more popular. Earnings were up, meaning the company is putting itself in better shape.
When it comes to streaming, this is what they stated:
Today Roku announced its 2nd quarter 2024 earnings report, and in that, it announced that during the 3rd quarter, Roku owners streamed over 30 billion hours of video, up 5 billion year over year. That works out to over 329 million hours of video streamed every day.
That is obviously a fair bit of content. When a platform is able to garner 329 million hours per day of viewing, it is easy to see how that can have an impact. Most impressive is the 6x growth from the prior year.
Certainly, when we think of streaming services, Roku is not the first one that comes to mind.
Yet, here we are with it as one of the growing players in the market.
Walmart About To Enter?
Few would think of Walmart as a potential entrant into the streaming market. So far, there is no indication from the company. That could change since Walmart is now a competitor of Roku.
Back in February, Walmart agreed to purchase Vizio, a television manufacturer.
Walmart on Tuesday said it's buying television manufacturer Vizio for $2.3 billion, an acquisition that could help the retailing giant build its advertising and media business.
Vizio may be best known for its TV sets, but it also operates the SmartCast Operating System, which has more than 18 million active accounts. The SmartCast system is included in every Vizio TV set, and connects with other services like Apple's Airplay and personal assistants like Amazon's Alexa.
As we can see, Walmart has options with this operating system. Relatively speaking, it would not be difficult to set up a streaming service. In fact, we see a number of them popping up.
With the resources Walmart has, placing one on each Vizio television would put them into the market.
Consolidation
The bigger players are already starting to consolidate. Their business model isn't strong as constructed so adjustments are being undertaken.
Many of the studios found they were lured in by big profits (the ones Netflix was generating) yet were unable to match. Actually, profits were elusive as these became money pits.
Warner Bros Discovery is having to reverse course:
Today, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the standalone Boomerang app and website will be discontinued on September 30th. The company is consolidating its streaming services, folding Boomerang’s content into the Max platform.
Current Boomerang subscribers will not experience any price increase, as their subscriptions will be automatically converted to Max ad-free plans at the same cost. Additionally, subscribers will be able to use their existing Boomerang login credentials to access Max seamlessly.
This could be followed up by some move by Disney with its combo of Hulu and Disney+.
The streaming market is only growing. It is here to stay. The future, at least in the near-medium term, is for this to be the future of entertainment. People are moving away from the traditional broadcast systems.
What is not clear is who the players will be. It is evident that fragmentation will continue as viewers are presented with more options.