WORLD WAR MEDIA is fast developing at home and around the globe as some of the biggest players in the home and mobile viewing entertainment arena are gearing up to compete for monthly consumer subscription fees.
Currently, NETFLIX, AMAZON PRIME, APPLE+ and DISNEY/FOX rule the roost with a wealth of original content and some classic material folks enjoy watching over and over. The latter will be able to dangle all of the past present and future kid oriented material from THE DISNEY CHANNEL as bait for parents. This programming will no longer be
available on any other media platform.
An example of vehicles with classic appeal is every episode of the ever- popular FRIENDS on NETFLIX.. However, since all those negatives are owned by WARNER BROTHERS, it will soon only be available on the AT&T service coming soon. MA BELL paid $80 billion for TIME WARNER which will soon offer streaming customers the super popular past and present HBO content, original material and every negative in the WARNER BROTHERS and the classic MGM library. This new streamed offering will consist of every theatrical feature, television series and cartoon ever produced by WB as well as all the content on the HOME BOX OFFICE service and is estimated to be priced in the zone of $16-18 per month. HBO alone in a streaming format is currently priced at $14.99 monthly.
The APPLE+ streaming service is offering up a vehicle with billions of $ already committed to the production of series. The jewel in that crown is a tasty combination of REESE WITHERSPOON, JENNIFER ANNISTON and STEVE CAREL hooking up as the creative team behind an early morning Monday-Friday TV program that resembles THE TODAY SHOW.
Rumors abound that the offering of the above might become a cleverly integrated premium into the recently announced new all purpose credit card offering from the unusual partnering of APPLE with GOLDMAN SACHS. An estimated of $100 million marketing budget is connected to the launch along with the announcement that GOLDMAN has reduced their minimum account balance for new clients from $5 million to $1 million. This is creating an increasing number of nervous management types at AMERICAN EXPRESS.
Following this collection of viewing choices is the announcement that COMCAST will be offering the NBC/PEACOCK service in a yet to be determined service format and CBS/VIACOM/PARAMOUNT is also cooking up a new streaming entry onto the crowded battlefield.
Bringing up the rear onto the crowded entertainment battlefield is a newly conceived streaming service that will emerge from the COMCAST owned NBC UNIVERSAL outfit that is in the planning stages and will be called PEACOCK. It will most certainly contain every archived theatrical feature film and television series ever produced by UNIVERSAL and NBC as well as new content. The many colors of the peacock were a symbol of NBC in days gone by. They are also planning some type of version that will have commercials/
CBS/VIACOM, which will soon join forces under one corporate management team and stock symbol, has CBS ALL ACCESS on offer for $5.99 per month. Will some type of package that contains everything from all the old BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and GREEN ACRES episodes to every PARAMOUNT PICTURES theatrical feature soon be on offer? As BOB DYLAN once crooned, “Only time will tell, who has fell and who has been left behind”.
I wonder if the host of advertisers such as expensive automobiles, a variety of stock brokerage entities, HEINECKEN and other high priced stuff, who seek a better educated and upscale demographic, are starting to slowly realize that the increasingly expensive media prices of traditional offerings of commercial television, except for professional and college sports, is not an intelligent way to place their advertising budgets. The latter, combined with a growing number of viewers who watch television with a phone, tablet or laptop at the ready, has media research folks implying that a host of upscale
marketers are paying for TV advertising but getting only sound without picture.
All in all, the above outlined collection of a wide variety of recent data-points and consumer offerings indicate that a streaming revolution is in the air. The viewing marketplace is immersed in a full- scale entertainment war with a host of powerful well-heeled entertainment forces on a wide variety of fronts. They will all be waging a non-stop battle for the regularly scheduled payment of the almighty monthly consumer buck!
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