It’s no surprise that the online entertainment industry is finding itself in the best position possible, particularly over the past year as many of the biggest services have managed to post up huge numbers during the pandemic period with many hoping to retain similar numbers moving forward – the biggest winners have been in spaces like gaming as many services have adjusted to changes in the market, things like UK casinos accepting credit cards for example following the change have shown how flexible the entertainment industry online is – but the big news has come from Disney, as they have managed to smash initial estimates.
The platform had aimed to have between 60-90 million subscribers by 2024, but had recently announced that they have now surpassed 100 million subscribers in just 16 months, a huge milestone to pass that took competition like Netflix a decade to reach only doing so back in 2017 – the goalposts have now been shifted in hopes to reach over 240 million subscribers by the original goal of 2024, but what is in store to help push the numbers even higher?
The first big shift will come form the box office – Hollywood studio Warner Bros already announced that their big releases for 2021 will all release directly to video-on-demand at the same time as the cinema through HBO Max and given the approach to streaming for Disney it is already expected that the same will be true for any big title in its own cinematic universe – but a wider scale change will certainly help push online entertainment forward as others jump onboard.
(Image from screenrant.com)
Another big shift that could mean change is on the way is within major sporting – the big broadcasting deals are set to expire over the next few years and some examples like the UK Premier League and its representation on Amazon have shown that the move can certainly be successful, it is widely expected that the big sporting events will all find at least some streaming representation through a big services and it’s a question of when rather than if, but this could also be a big catalyst for change in the online entertainment space.
That isn’t to say there aren’t challenges ahead though – the growing number of services brings growing costs and with premiere features on things like Disney+ the cost certainly ramps it – it’s leading to many cutting back on the number of services they’re using prioritising only those with the better content cycle, it could see numbers for some start to dip as availability goes down and users favour those making bigger changes over others. Only time will tell, but the numbers posted are certainly showing online entertainment success that doesn’t look to wane anytime soon.
