MIPTV forecasts the new disrupters in the broadcasting business

Live streaming is poised to the broadcasting industry’s next big revenue maker and significant disrupter according to key executives at this year’s MIPTV in Cannes.

In a win for IPTV providers  ‘Live Streaming’  has been hailed the fasted growing area of digital.

Eurodata TV Worldwide, VP, Fréderic  Valpreé forecast that live-streaming, described at MIPTV as the new cool, will soon go mainstream with social media giants and traditional broadcast media trying to vie for the growing audience.

“Today viewers want a 360 degree TV experience, not a linear one. That means traditional TV channels branching out onto new digital and social platforms and engaging more closely with their fan,” he said.

Stream Up President, Will Keenan said that ‘live’ is the new disruption for television.  “It is the new must-watch destination for television, it’s FOMO, fear of missing out,” he said. He noted that at the same time reality TV viewership was decreasing, viewership of online video bloggers, was going way up.  He claimed  that audiences are craving authentic , intimate engagement with content. 

“Now even viewership for online video blogging stars is going down. Because you can’t get more genuine than live, you can’t fake it. A lot of the video bloggers now are looking overly polished and edited,” he said.

The changes in consumer consumption of video are showing in the numbers.  During 2015 worldwide TV sales fell by 11%. Millenials watched 10 minutes less television a day and in the US research showed that 62% of adults watched online video every day.   “Even if young adults are looking less at television we know that new usages are increasing, like consumption on tablet, mobile and PC,” said Vaulpre.

Meanwhile, Vivendi Content’ head Dominique Delport  revealed in his keynote “The future is in your palm,” that while streaming video on demand represented 20% of total viewing time in the US, it only drew 4.7% of the revenues  and merely 2.3% in Europe.

“If content is king, is SVOD its new emperor? My take on this: Look at the numbers. The cable business is a 100 billion dollars in the US. The advertising market on TV is a 70 billion dollar business. SVOD is still a 5 billion dollar business. Two giant and a dwarf,” Delport said.

He noted that 50% of SVOD subscribers around the world also have pay TV subscription, which makes SVOD a pay TV complement, not quite yet its vanquisher.

He urged for the need for Euro companies to forge alliances and build strong Europe-based global distribution platforms that can rival U.S. and Asian media powerhouses which fully dominate the world market.

“Today, we spend 50% of our digital time with these four usual suspects (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon). They represent 1.5 Trillion dollar market capitalization,” said Delport. He called for  Europe to form needs its own global giants to preserve  diversity and culture.