In a last ditch bid to combat the threat from digital streamers, a number of broadcasters within and across European markets have banded together to launch new online services.
Although business models vary, they offer digital-first functionality like programme restart and content recommendations with availability on as wide variety of product and platform as possible.
French and British broadcasters share a belief that ring-fencing homegrown content is something that domestic audiences are crying out for. . This concept is perhaps fatally undermined by the weak content budgets (in the low millions of Euros) local broadcasters allocate for original content compared to the billions of Euros of global SVoDs.
Some, such as Salto and Britbox, have had to overcome anti-competition hurdles, others forced to get into bed with local rivals. Both dynamics have hamstrung speed to launch ceding more advantage to SVoDs.
LovesTV, a joint venture of Spain’s three leading broadcasters RTVE, Atresmedia and Mediasat, went live last November. The platform is based on HbbTV technology which allows digital-terrestrial channels to be offered with interactive functionalities traditionally associated with internet platforms.
German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 introduced Joyn to the German market in June partnered with Discovery. It comprises 55 FTA TV channels, offered as free live streams, including channels of public broadcasters pubcasters ARD and ZDF and those of commercial broadcasters Viacom, WELT and Sport1. Its attraction is multi-screen availability (smartphones, smart TV, tablets) without prior registration to maximise take-up and a content mix including curated theme channels, ahead-of-TV premiers and catch-up. A layer of subscription is about to be added, for services including Discovery’s Eurosport Player, with plans to expand the service to other countries.
In France the country’s main terrestrial broadcasters (France Télévisions, TF1, M6), will launch a JV in the Spring but strict conditions have been placed on it by the country’s competition watchdog. Salto will include linear DTT channels and catch-up services along with a SVoD but the partners must commit to a series of remedies to prevent anti-competitive coordination in rights acquisition, the commercialisation of TV channels and the distribution of pay TV services and the advertising market.
On the verge of launch is BritBox showcasing BBC and ITV content to British audiences, with some programming, such as The Office, pulled from Netflix. Such a service has been over a decade in the making, since the competition commission blocked planned SVoD Kangaroo, a move that enabled Netflix to take root. At launch, BritBox is primarily a vehicle for commercial broadcaster ITV although talks with Channel 4, Viacom-owned Channel 5 and with BT remain open.
“BritBox is proudly a mass niche service,” said BritBox president Soumya Sriraman. “We blend the immediacy of broadcast with the swagger of a digital streamer creating a ‘broad-streamer’.”
There may be value in a service that gives fans of British original programming a straightforward way to find it on-demand in one place, but this is still to be tested. Given that it will go live without any exclusive new titles and that programmes will air FTA then on catch-up before transferring, the odds are stacked against it.
All these collaborations offer broadcasters a supplementary revenue stream at a time when the advertising market is under assault. Other attempts to achieve scale include pooling advertising efforts (as between erstwhile rivals ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL) and ambitious moves to create a pan-European TV company. Italian TV group Mediaset, for example, acquired 10 percent of ProSiebenSat.1, a first step in creating a pan-European television company.
Since no European broadcaster has the resources to compete alone against global players, they have to seek economies of scale by working together. It may be – as French giant Vivendi found following the high-profile failure of SVoD CanalPlay - that the better strategy is to complement rather than compete with Netflix.
