The battle of streaming to gain the preference of its users and increase the number of its subscribers in its different formats, makes the companies involved look for the best formulas to show themselves to their target audience, which is no longer only looking for what to see, but also what listen.
The video streamer war is at one of its highest points. The battle to not lose subscribers and to win the eyes of audiovisual content users is becoming more and more intense and it seems that the companies that are (or were) only followers of the leader of the moment, Netflix, are already earning their place thanks to the dissemination of more valuable or interesting content for the public, both from the generation of its own material and from the recovery of movies and series that the aforementioned “streamer” had and that belong to its competition.
Disney, Paramount, HBO, Warner, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, and others that are trying to gain a place among these giants, such as YouTube or Claro Video among others (and not counting free streamers like PlutoTV), are getting more and more more subscribers and force the competition to be “fast and furious” leaving behind the great pioneer of audiovisual entertainment through the Internet.
And this battle is demonstrated in the trends and preferences of the public. In a recent study by the Conviva platform, “State of streaming”, reflects the growth that streaming is experiencing in 2022. According to this research, streaming grew 10% worldwide during the first quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter. first quarter of 2021.
Also according to a Nielsen study, streaming surpassed all other categories of television use in the US for the first time in history. Last July, 34.8% of all television was seen via streaming, 34.4% via cable and 21.6% via television. In August, streaming climbed even higher to 35% of total TV usage
And this will go up. Even Reed Hastings, the Co-CEO of Netflix, foresees that the end of traditional television is very close (he gives it 5 to 10 years to live).
This growth is not limited only to the audiovisual product, but there is another industry within streaming that we must turn to see: audio or music streaming.
According to the “Music streaming Global Market Report 2022”, made by Reportlinker.com, the music streaming market is expected to grow from $24.09 billion in 2021 to $27.24 billion in 2022.
Other data:
Music streaming revenue has increased every year since its inception. Since 2014 it has grown at an average rate of 43.9% and has become the main source of income for most record labels.
Spotify is the platform of choice for almost a third of all music streaming listeners worldwide, with Apple Music in second place. Tencent and Netease are the two key platforms in China, even though Spotify and Apple Music are not blocked by the government.
According to MIDiA Research, Spotify has a 31 percent market share, Apple Music 15 percent, Amazon Music 13 percent, Tencent Music 13 percent, and YouTube Music 8 percent.
As of 2021 Spotify had 165 million subscribers and generated $10.9 billion (between ad-supported and premium subscribers), followed by Apple Music with 88 million subscribers and revenue of 4.1 billion, Amazon Music with 68 million subscribers and YouTube Music with 50 million.
As for users (who are not necessarily subscribers) YouTube has 2 billion active users who listen to music.
For all these data mentioned, it is not at all strange that Apple, in the direct competition it has with Spotify, until now the leader in the audio streaming market, has taken the courier left by Pepsi to enter with its Apple Music service as a sponsor. official of the Super Bowl, a “very juicy” event in terms of the number of its viewers since, only last February at halftime of Super Bowl LVI, they had 120 million people watching the game, including the show of halftime.
Specialists in the matter, since neither the NFL nor Apple announced the terms of the agreement, calculate that the league will receive at least 50 million dollars each year for the rights.
Pepsi had been the official sponsor since 2013 and this will be the first time that a music streaming platform is the star brand of the event and the agreement that it agreed with the NFL for several years comes at an ideal time for Apple, since its relationship with the sport has increased thanks to the contracts it has recently achieved with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer to broadcast its games through Apple TV + (and it will not take long to reach an agreement with the NFL to have the exclusive transmission from Sunday Night Football, it seems).
Apple, with the experience it has, and without forgetting the advertising of its hardware, which is so successful in the market of technology, communication and gadgets such as the iPhone, accessories or its computers (since the competition in these areas is also very strong), will continue having a brand presence and also has the vision of entering more strongly into a growing market from which it wants to take a large slice. Music streaming revenue alone is forecast to have an annual growth rate (projected 5 years) of 7.54%, resulting in an expected market volume of $43.63 billion by 2027. to want to compete?
So it will already be on February 12, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, that historic moment in which Apple Music will be present at the Super Bowl.
With Rihanna in the show, it seems to me that they will not do badly at all.