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December 9, 2019Prime Video Channels: part of Amazon UK’s bigger picture
Focus Report, ReportsAmazon Channels’ aggregation of third-party streaming services enhances the consumer appeal of its wider video proposition, provides incremental revenues and increases the stickiness of the Prime shopping service. Content partners range from major players (e.g. Discovery and ITV) to the more niche (e.g. MUBI and Tastemade), who all benefit from a ready-made platform, billing relationships and a receptive subscriber base. But the revenue shares, data costs and lack of direct customer relationships remain too high a price for some. Two and a half years on from its UK launch, opportunities for live, ad-supported and bundled content are diversifying the platform, but Amazon must prioritise discovery within Prime Video to continue to flourish.
March 6, 2019Sports SVOD – Can Foxtel deliver a KO?
Flash Report, ReportsOf all the video content genres, sport has the best reputation for delivering audience reach and a large number of viewers for traditional TV operators. But the rise of Sports SVOD and OTT platforms is threatening to undermine the established order. Foxtel has launched its standalone sports streaming service – Kayo Sports and signed up 100,000 subscribers within the first 3 months of launch.
February 11, 2019REA Group 1HFY19 update: growth in a challenging environment
Flash Report, ReportsOn 8th February 2019, REA Group reports its 1HFY19 earnings. Core Australian business continues to drive earnings and revenue growth in spite of a tough macro environment but a write-down in the Asia business impacted earnings for 1HFY19.
January 17, 2019Apple and Amazon bury the hatchet
Flash Report, ReportsAmazon’s recent deals with Apple in TV, music and device sales mark a turning point after a decade of frosty relations. The context for this involves shifting priorities at both firms, growing pressure on Apple’s iPhone business, and rivals in common — first and foremost Google, but also the likes of Netflix and Spotify. The uneasy alliance helps both companies consolidate their strengths in the platform competition over media and the connected home — but trouble already brews.
July 12, 2018Virtual Reality in 2018: Ready Player None?
Focus Report, ReportsYet another annual hype cycle in 2018 can’t hide a tepid consumer appetite for all VR platforms and heavy weather for the industry as a whole. The launch of Oculus GO, a standalone device at an attractive price, is a milestone for VR; nevertheless, even Facebook remains worried about reach and the state of the industry. Mobile AR is still a strategic focus for Google and Apple, producing diverse applications instead of just games, but new headsets from Microsoft and Magic Leap which promise advanced MR experiences have no launch dates.
July 11, 2018Media transformation is just beginning…
Focus Report, ReportsThe continued rise and dominance of Silicon Valley’s tech giants continue to vex traditional media operators and regulators, and equally, still fascinate and allure consumers and advertisers. Publishers and marketers can no longer rely on commoditised campaigns to reach target audiences, they must offer personalised and targeted experiences that consumers are willing to pay for either through attention or dollars.
July 9, 2018Europe’s Creative Hubs Update 2018
Market Outlook, ReportsThis third edition of Europe's Creative Hubs, produced on behalf of Bertelsmann, highlights the challenges of the digital age for enterprises of the creative industries of France, Germany and the UK from new consumer behaviors and the advent of new competitors and new forms of competition for users and customers from tech giants, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix. The report calls upon policymakers in Europe to ensure a level playing field for traditional media in the key areas of taxation, competition law, privacy and data protection, highlighting the interaction of these three in the market for online advertising.
July 4, 2018The eSports economy – it’s just getting started…
Focus Report, ReportseSports has grown in popularity beyond being a niche form of entertainment to becoming a powerful means to engage millennial audiences. There’s significant investment from major media corporations, mainstream advertisers and professional sports franchises, demonstrating the emerging importance of eSports.
May 16, 2018SXSW 2018 – Visions of the future: Blockchain, AI and Colonies [...]
Flash Report, ReportsVenture Insights attended this year’s South by South West (SXSW), Austin’s annual technology conference.This report highlights 7 key trends from the event, including: the impact of Blockchain, whether we should trust AI, how ethics apply to platforms, the battle for your voice and whether we will be on Mars by 2019!
April 10, 2018Hey Siri – What is the potential of Digital Voice Assistants in [...]
Focus Report, ReportsVoice as an interface is fast emerging as major interaction platform in the digital ecosystem. Rapid adoption has led to a growing appetite among businesses to build voice-focused experiences. From a media perspective it is therefore important to understand how digital voice assistants will evolve, their potential use cases and the implications for businesses.
April 5, 2018Facebook’s data breach – an inflection point for internet pri [...]
Focus Report, ReportsAs Facebook has become increasingly popular, marketers have found it far easier to combine our online personas with our offline selves to enable better ad targeting, leading to concerns around how much data do they actually have. However the Cambridge Analytica data breach could emerge as the ‘line in the sand’ moment for not just Facebook but online data privacy as a whole.
March 27, 2018OK Google: The rise of Voice Assistants in Australia
Focus Report, ReportsThe rapid growth in voice search technologies and the increasing penetration of Digital Voice Assistants indicates that voice search is fast emerging as a significant computing platform with the potential for a direct-to-consumer relationship.
March 21, 2018Ad blocking – Google and publishers strike back…
Focus Report, ReportsAd blockers have had a huge impact on the online advertising landscape in the past few years. This impact will grow larger as the popularity of ad blockers reaches a critical mass on desktop as well as mobile. While publishers have tried multiple strategies, Google’s ad blocking move while counter-intuitive at first glance, could prove to be just the right approach to combat the rise of ad blockers.
December 4, 2017Site Blocking and Digital Piracy
ReportsIllegal downloading of copyrighted content (such as movies) in Australia remains a major issue. Legal actions and copyright law changes combined with education, cyber risk awareness and new content models are helping to minimise illegal downloading
November 29, 2017Google: A Trojan Horse for the TV industry?
ReportsWhile Google dominates the online video market via YouTube, efforts in the TV industry have constantly fallen short of expectations. However, Google is now positioning itself to become a critical part of the TV value chain.
October 12, 2017Voice Assistants: Better together?
Focus Report, ReportsWhile Virtual Assistants (VA) have existed since 2011, the category only took off after recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and the introduction of the smart speaker. Major players like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon already have their own Virtual Assistants. Asian players are now developing their own. The Microsoft-Amazon collaboration may gain them the edge needed to overcome the slew of new and entrenched players.
August 29, 2017Video Market Outlook – FY17: SVOD is driving growth of the mark [...]
ReportsThe Australian Video Market is plateauing, as growth continues for SVOD alongside losses for traditional media. We anticipate the market to reach A$5.3b by 2022. Streamed digital media (SVOD, TVOD and EST) are growing strongly at the expense of physical media (Blu-ray and DVDs). SVOD subscriptions are anticipated to reach over 6 million by 2020, driven predominantly by Netflix.
August 9, 2017Digital Advertising Trends Part 3: Native Advertising
ReportsNative advertising is witnessing rapid growth within the digital advertising market, driven by changing consumer behaviour and increasing publisher demands. Will it be a possible antidote to a number of industry woes, or will native’s potential to deceive audiences outweigh any possible value it can provide?
July 13, 2017Verizon merger with Yahoo
ReportsVerizon has undergone two large-scale acquisitions within the past two years in a bid to compete against internet giants, Facebook and Google. Are these mergers a step in the right direction for the Telco giant, or will the company remain in the shadow of the duopoly?
June 22, 2017US music publishing royalties for 2018-22
ReportsThe “fair return” to US music publishers and songwriters for rights used by interactive streaming services will be decided in 2017 by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). Rights owners want to switch to a fixed per-stream or per-user rate on all tiers, arguing music has an inherent value. Apple is asking for a much lower per-stream rate. Amazon, Google, Spotify and Pandora warn of disruption to free and ad-supported tiers if the revenue-share tariff is not rolled over, and the CRB could side with them
June 1, 2017Australian Out-of-Home Market Outlook 2017: Widespread growth dri [...]
ReportsThe Australian Out-of-Home (OoH) market has been growing continuously for the past seven years, with CY16 posting a notable 15.8% year on year increase.Total revenue for 2016 was at an all-time high of $789.5 million, up from $682.1 million in 2015
May 25, 2017Disruption in Payments: Time to throw out your wallet?
Focus Report, ReportsAs the usage of cash declines, we are trending towards a cashless society supported by new payment technologies.Within the next decade, cashless methods will be preferred, and have mostly positive implications for both businesses and consumers.However, cash will still be with us and being used for well over the next 20 years.
January 27, 2017Netflix at 10: still growing, still spending
ReportsNetflix celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its streaming service by posting its largest quarterly rate of subscriber growth, adding just over 7m new subscribers in Q4 2016, smashing its own forecast for the period of 5.2m.
5.12m of the new subscribers were for its international services, attributed to acceptance of its growing suite of English language original programs. But growth is just as likely related to the bolstering of overseas offerings with acquired programming, after launching worldwide with relatively small libraries.
While re-establishing confidence after a period of doubt when missing targets in Q2, challenges await; most notably concerns around net neutrality, diversifying content genres, and the open question as to how effectively original programming will be able to carry the service.
Sector Digital Media, Digital Video, Internet, Media, online video, OTT Video, TV, Video Entertainment.
January 13, 2017Music subscription streaming 2017
ReportsStreaming is now mainstream and we predict 113% growth in expenditure on subscriptions for 2015-18 in the top four markets (US, UK, Germany and France).
Free vs paid-for streaming is the central question for the music ecosystem: free yields fractions of pennies, making subscription the only credible business model.
Market leader Spotify is facing competition from tech giants Amazon, Apple and Google, with deep pockets, for whom content is a pawn in a larger game.
