Streaming Replacing Cable
In the June 2021 DIGIGRAM, we made predictions for the consolidation of the entertainment industry in our article “Shapeshifting of Entertainment Ecosystems.” The trends we discussed have only continued as the three largest streaming companies, Netflix, Amazon, and Disney/Hulu, now control over 60% of viewers in the streaming market. Image: A new king of streaming emerged at the end of 2022: Prime Video by Amazon overtook Netflix. (Source) Now Roku, the company best known for making boxes to stream other companies’ content, just unveiled its own television offering at CES. They aren’t first-movers in this category, as Amazon introduced its own line of 4k TVs integrated with Alexa some years ago. However, Roku’s offering demonstrates the ongoing trend of switching from cable TV to streaming first. In mid-2021, streaming accounted for only a fourth of America’s TV viewing time – most streaming was happening on laptops or phones. However, in July 2022, streaming services got more TV viewing time than cable networks for the first time. As cord-cutting continues, 87% of U.S. households had a subscription to a streaming service …