The 80/20 View: The impact of original content on streaming
In his regular column for Mumbrella, Thinkerbell’s general manager Ben Shepherd examines the trends and tides of Australia’s TV on-demand audience.
When streaming first emerged in Australia, my initial forecast on how it would transform the Australian market was way off.
I can remember the moment very clearly. An investment firm had asked me for my perspective on both the linear TV market and the emergent streaming market. It was the end of 2014, Netflix was readying itself to launch in Australia and Nine and Fairfax at the time had committed to the StreamCo joint venture.
The view I held at the time, and presented to the room, was there was likely room for one streaming service in Australia, and it was more likely something that would steal from an existing market (Pay TV) rather than create an entirely new one.
Yes, this view was spectacularly wrong. However – the streaming landscape in 2014 was very different to the one we see now. The difference – original content.
