Netflix and the content arms race

Netflix, Amazon, Hulu are trying to reach more people with original and creative content, which is ultimately driving the rise in content creation, particularly for high-end TV drama. 

Keen said: ”This year Netflix will be spending $8 billion on content, releasing on average two new original titles every single day this year.

”That is an incredibly disruptive thing to happen, causing great ripples in the industry.” 

Content creators are being forced to adopt different distribution models.

“Netflix is the first truly global network to be deployed, they’re in pretty much every country, Amazon have followed suit, it is a different model.”

Keen also pointed out the importance of compression to OTT players.

He said: ”Netflix, Amazon, Google and YouTube are concerned to reach more customers, more subscribers and more viewers with the available bandwidth that exists. As they are global networks they need to use more compression in order to reach more customers.”