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Could the various smart-TV platforms like Apple TV, Chromecast or Roku be required to run “content malls”
Disney Is Dumping Netflix And Launching New Streaming Apps | FastCompany
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Traditionally, movie and TV production studios have been making their wares available through distributors or other third-party elements.
But what has happened is that they are moving towards running their own video-on-demand services in a similar way to how some manufacturers and first-party distributors have set up their own “direct” mail-order or online storefronts in the US market.
Disney is heading this way by moving their content from Netflix to their own service, something they were announcing as part of a third-quarter earnings call. It may sound close to the established “catch-up TV” model especially where the TV channels are running their own content for a long time on their video-on-demand services. Here, Disney sees this service they are exposing as the online home for some of their content like Toy Story 4 or the live-action version of the Lion King, along with putting their library of TV and movie content onto video-on-demand. Could this mean the ability to “pull up” Disney’s short cartoons that graced Saturday morning children’s TV or the early part of the cinema sessions before and after World War II. Or the ability to see those classic animated feature-length movies that
Here, it is similar to what HBO and CBS have been working on by offering a direct video-on-demand service for their content. But the “studio-direct” model could lead to difficulties in navigating content of a kind offered by multiple studios, as well as requiring potential viewers to sign up with multiple video-on-demand providers. In some cases, it may also affect whether a potential viewer signs on because of the cost of the service or the kind of business model offered by the provider. It may appeal to those of us who shine to a particular studio’s output.
Studio-direct VOD along with niche VOD may then lead to a requirement to establish video-on-demand as a “content mall” facilitated by mobile / desktop-computing platforms and smart-TV / set-top / games-console platforms. This may involve the use of content directories that link to the service providers in a similar vein to TuneIn Radio or vTuner for Internet radio. At the moment, Roku is the only provider who is working close to a “content mall” for their set-top platform, but there will be pressure on other platforms to take this approach.
It is very interesting times ahead for video-on-demand as the traditional “single-front” Netflix model falls away to the mall-based approach.
