According to a new industry research report 2025 will be the year in which the revenue from video streaming will overtake the annual revenue globally of traditional pay-TV.
According to Omdia, a global analyst and advisory firm, 2025 will be the first year in which video streaming at $213 billion will outearn traditional pay-TV with $188 billion.
More revenue from and for video streaming services will come from mimicking what traditional TV and pay-TV have been doing for decades: advertising, pricing, and even programming.
As video streaming services from Netflix to Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and others have introduced ad-tiers, making subscribers pay to watch and pay to watch less ads, streamers "are beginning to look like pay-TV 2.0," says Tony Gunnarsson, senior principal analyst at Omdia.
Video streaming is also growing in another trend: "Linearisation" and almost "broadcasting" like traditional television with a weekly "schedule".
In Omdia's latest 2025 Trends to Watch report, the company declares the so-called "streaming wars" over, saying advertising is in and that the bundling of standalone subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) bundles will be what comes next.
"Until streaming looks and feels like pay-TV used to be, it will be cut-throat for everyone."
New consumer research from Deloitte has found growing frustration among consumers with the fast-rising costs of video streaming services.
According to the new market research, 64% of consumers are increasingly unhappy and frustrated with the constant, increasing prices of streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and the like, with over 44% who have actually cancelled at least one video-on-demand (VOD) subscription in the last 6 months.
The consumer market research is based on a survey which was conducted under 3 554 American consumers during June and July this year.
According to Deloitte, 15% of respondents said that they do password sharing and use someone else's video streaming service password, while 7% have watched pirated TV shows or movies and around 4% do both.
Under the so-called Gen Z and Millennials categories more than 35% of password sharers indicated that they don't want to pay for a streaming video service.
Universal+ will be added to MultiChoice's DStv Catch Up service from 14 October as an on-demand video streaming service not requiring additional payment and will be accessible through the DStv app or DStv Explora decoders which are connected to the internet.
Universal+ or "Universal Plus" is not Peacock - NBCUniversal's over-the-top (OTT) video streaming service taking its name from the logo of the American TV network NBC - which isn't yet available in South Africa but is run as a streamer in the United States and countries like the United Kingdom through Sky's pay-TV service.
Universal+ which is not accessible on its own and must be accessed through DStv's pay-TV platform will contain series and films from NBCUniversal International Networks' set of available TV channels on DStv in South Africa like Universal TV, E!, DreamWorks, Studio Universal and Telemundo.
Universal+ is already available through pay-TV services in Latin American countries like Brazil, Spain and India and will now make binge-watching possible for DStv subscribers across sub-Saharan Africa. NBCUniversal says the on-demand service will have "thousands of hours of compelling entertainment", including a "huge selection of full boxsets to binge, new shows and movies".
"We're thrilled to launch Universal+ with our long-standing
partners DStv, giving their customers a brand-new way to enjoy a vastly
expanded catalogue of our best content," says Lee Raftery, managing director for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region for NBCUniversal International
Networks & direct-to-consumer, in a statement.
"From 14 October, the incredible
line-up of entertainment available to DStv customers ranges from award-winning
original production Celebrity Game Night – which shortly goes back into
production for a fourth season – to gripping dramas and Hollywood blockbusters.
And, it's all at no extra cost to a subscription."
Simon Camerer, MultiChoice South Africa chief operating officer, on the addition of Universal+ says "We are excited to bring the best of international content
andthe widest possible choice of great shows to satisfy all our
viewers".
It's not clear why NBCUniversal is adding Universal+ for Africa now, with the company late to the video streaming party in the continent where MultiChoice's streamer Showmax, Netflix Africa, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Disney+ are making inroads in the video streaming market segment.
South Africa's public broadcaster is still to launch its SABC+ streaming service in the third quarter of 2022, with Paramount planning to roll out its Paramount+ video streaming service sometime in 2023 and with Warner Bros. Discovery which hasn't yet confirmed any launch for South Africa of its combined and to-be-renamed HBO Max and discovery+ streamers.
Smaller existing streamers like VIU, Britbox and TelkomONE are also battling for a piece of the pie in the ramping up streaming wars, with eMedia's eVOD service that launched in August 2011 which has now passed the mark of 500 000 registered users with its content carousel of movies, series, Afrikaans telenovelas and documentaries.
DStv subscribers who started watching the American drama series This is Us on M-Net will now have to switch to Disney+ to see how it ends, with the series that is jumping to Disney's streamer as more shows on South African television continue to switch from traditional pay-TV to streaming.
Viewers wondering when the 6th and final season of This is Us, which started earlier this year on NBC in the United States, was going to make its way to M-Net (DStv 101) might be disillusioned to hear that they will now have to subscribe to Disney's video streaming service to see the conclusion of the story of the Pearson siblings.
M-Net told TVwithThinus in response to a media query that This is Us will no longer be on the channel that it acquired and started to show from the first season in May 2017.
"M-Net has not licensed This is Us season 6. This means that it will not air on M-Net," the channel said.
The 6th season of This is Us wraps up the storyline of the 20th Television distributed drama series that made viewers cry about the family drama of Randall (Sterling K. Brown), Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Kevin (Justin Hartley), as well as their parents Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebeca (Mandy Moore) as told through time-jumps and backflashes to fill in the family's history.
Disney South Africa told TVwithThinus that it will now carry the complete This is Us box set, including the latest and final 6th season.
"All 6
seasons of This Is Us will be available on Disney+ from 14 September."
The next TV series likely also leaving M-Net and also jumping to Disney+, although not yet confirmed, is the science fiction series The Orville of which the new third season is now on the Hulu video streaming service in the United States.
The entire series including the new season is now on Disney+ in America and the United Kingdom since 10 August.
"With regards to The Orville, seasons 1 and 2 are currently available to stream now on
Disney+ and we will let you know when season 3 will be available," Disney says.
This is Us and The Orville are just the latest examples of shows jumping from their original broadcast TV home in South Africa to streaming platforms.
In the new trend, shows like The Walking Dead are moving from traditional pay-TV - for instance from MultiChoice's DStv and StarTimes' StarSat - to video streaming.
It's very similar to how American shows that were once on free-to-air TV channels like the SABC and e.tv, started to jump to DStv in the previous two decades as pay-TV became dominant and needed content volume to fill linear pay-TV channel's schedules.
