Reports: direct-to-consumer

The music merchandise market has transformed, with significantly more artists selling merch and more product variety than ever before. The traditional line between “hard” and “soft” merch is blurring as new generations buy vinyl as a collectible keepsake, rather than a consumption format.

The current division between the new video D2C entrants of 2019/2020 has revealed a strategic split between those that are leveraging established distribution advantages versus those focused on monetising existing content assets. The current market distortions wrought by the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic have placed power firmly in the hands of services able to leverage zeitgeisty originals combined with libraries of proven content and brand assets.

The postponement of annual competitions and major quadrennial events has highlighted just how heavily pay-TV and sport-centric streaming services’ value propositions rely on live sports. Filling schedules with re-runs, docuseries, interviews and archived footage are stopgaps unlikely to increase engagement.

The direct-to-consumer (D2C) video big bang moment is getting into stride, with Peacock and HBO Max following Apple TV+ and Disney+ into the already-congested video streaming marketplace. TV show marketing teams now face unprecedented competition for audience attention and mindshare.

This report presents key trends and analysis from MIDiA’s quarterly Video Brand Tracker survey, including devices for viewing, video streaming activities, subscription video on demand (SVOD), demographics, video streaming app users, and top-streamed TV shows.

2019 marks the biggest shift in the US video market since Netflix’s pivot into streaming in 2007. Apple, Disney and AT&T-owned Warner Media are preparing for their direct-to-consumer (D2C) launches into the US market in Q4 2019/Q1 2020. How they fare will have a significant impact on the global evolution of video subscriptions.

In the build-up to the Disney+ launch in November 2019, the US market is dominated by the big five of Netflix (currently number one for paid subscriptions with 60.2 million), Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Now and CBS All Access. Hulu showed the most dramatic growth, with a 41% increase in subscribers between Q1 2018 and Q1 2019.

With a market capitalisation 122 times its current annual net income, Netflix suddenly finds itself scrambling to justify its price-to-earnings ratio. The July 17th earnings call knocked 11% off the market capitalisation of the poster-child of the streaming era in a matter of two days – equivalent to the entire market capitalisation of Snap Inc, another former darling of the tech and media landscape.

2019 marks the biggest shift in the US video market since Netflix’s pivot into streaming in 2007. Apple, Disney and AT&T-owned Warner Media are preparing for their direct-to-consumer (D2C) launches into the US market in Q3/Q4 2019. How they fare will have a significant impact on the global evolution of video subscriptions.