The Battle for Viewership: How Traditional Media Can Compete With Big Tech in the Streaming Wars

The ‘streaming war’ is now about Big Tech vs. Traditional Media providers competing for industry dominance. 

Recently, I discussed this with Alexandra Canal at Yahoo Finance for her article on YouTube’s industry leadership.

The Takeaways

The media ecosystem has expanded as Big Tech advances its focus on the media business.

• Traditional content providers now need to figure out how to compete with those deep pockets by asking themselves: what are my strengths? 
• From a position of strength, traditional media companies can strategically invest in increasing the output and efficiency of their core competencies.

 Big Tech is taking two different approaches. 

• Google ( YoutubeTV ) is going after the MVPD market in direct competition with traditional broadcast and cable. 
• Apple , Amazon ( Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios ), and Netflix leverage original, exclusive, and licensed content that are in direct competition with the major content owner’s streaming services.  

With the accelerated advent of streaming, consumers have experienced too much of a good thing – too many shows on too many platforms. Viewers flooded with options increasingly turn to all-in-one platforms like YouTube, which offers a $70/month TV package. This subscription includes content from several traditional media players: NBCUniversal , Warner Bros. Discovery , Paramount and The Walt Disney Company . Even more, Google’s user-generated content (#UGC) original platform is now the ultimate goal for consumer creators. And now, Comcast’s newly announced streaming service with Peacock , Netflix & Apple TV + will be deeply discounted for subscribers. 

At the end of the day, consumers are looking for access to:

• The most desired content on demand and live (news/sports)
• A reduction in the services they need to authenticate with
• The ability to watch on any device
• A compelling data-driven user experience
• To only pay for the content they find valuable.

Is that all?  No…with the option to minimize ads, the consumer is willing to pay a premium. 

Consumers’ discerning focus on content is good news for traditional media creators. 

With the right technology investments, continued focus on creating great content, and striking the balance of exclusivity and ads — traditional media creators and distributors can capitalize on their strengths to compete with Big Tech.