The ‘Age of the Streaming Service’ has arrived. Without much notice or fanfare, it has completely realigned how we consume most of our content: Economics Casestudy, UCD, Ireland

Case Study

The ‘Age of the Streaming Service’ has arrived. Without much notice or fanfare, it has completely realigned how we consume most of our content. Since its streaming service debuted in 2007, Netflix has been at the forefront of this revolution providing on-demand and commercial-free streaming on any device. But now new competitors are entering the market and the competition is heating up.

Once a scrappy upstart in the TV industry, Netflix has become the king of streaming with 280m subscribers, nearly half of the world’s total excluding China. Netflix, however, faces increased competition in the streaming video market with the entry of Amazon, Disney, and Apple.Netflix added fewer than 4m subscribers globally in the first three months of this year, while Disney Plus lured 9m subscribers in the same quarter.

More competition is on the horizon with Comcast and ViacomCBA set to combine forces and launch a new video on demand platform in Europe to be named SkyShowtime combining the Paramount, Universal, and Nickelodeon brands. The joint venture is designed to be more cost-effective than both companies going it alone due to the scale of the operation. Its rollout is the latest sign of how global media groups are rushing to meet booming demand for streamed video content (including the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger), a trend that has accelerated due to successive lockdowns and the closure of cinemas during the pandemic.