Netflix gains, Spotify plunges

Streaming services have become a source of newfound entertainment amid prolonged quarantine period. Some may stream out of boredom, other stream simply to keep up with the current trend. Have you got the time to catch up with Tiger King?

For whatever reason, streaming services such as Netflix are seeing a rise in screen time and subscriber count. One may question the performance of streaming services in times like these. Do we expect to see subscriber numbers skyrocket? Heightened competition amongst platforms? A better overall performance?

Well, the answers seem pretty obvious.

The number of subscribers did, in fact, skyrocket. Netflix amassed about 15.77 million new subscribers in the first three months of 2020, far above the company’s estimate of about 7 million. Hulu is not far behind. The company reportedly gained 28.6 million subscribers in February.

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic at the end of March, TV analytics company EDO surveyed a total of 6,809 people in the US about their at-home viewing habits. 85% of respondents stated that their at-home TV and movie watching had increased by up to 50%. A big chunk of it went to Disney Plus and Hulu (29% and 21%, respectively).

Alongside bigger streaming corporations such as Netflix, Hulu and Disney Plus, YouTube also recorded a surge in viewer counts. YouTube data shows that views of personal activity videos (such as meditation, cooking or workout tutorials) that have the phrases "at home" or “#withme” in the title leaped by 500% on March 15 compared to the daily average of the rest of the year.

Fitness guru Gia Fey (BodyByGia) says that her views across various social platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, had increased. "On YouTube, views have gone up by about 40% and watch time (time spent watching) has gone up by as much as 50%."

Local lifestyle podcast MaknaTalks reported an increase in daily average viewership by approximately 17,489 viewers according to SocialBlade. Lifestyle-related videos are not the only ones garnering all the attention. Gaming viewership on YouTube had also enjoyed an increase of approximately 15%.

Indonesian gamer Reza Oktovian managed to amass 3,932,712 views in the last 30 days. According to streaming software company StreamElements, streaming viewership on Twitch -a streaming platform that focuses on video games- increased by a full 10% in mid-March.

With the majority of the world’s population stay at home and due to the abundance of content available on various streaming services, the struggle for dominance in the streaming world has never been more real. For now, Netflix is leading the pack among listed streaming services. Netflix’s market capitalisation of $187.3 billion leads over Disney’s $186.6 billion.

The margin between the two is as thin as a sheet of paper, as one of the reasons why Netflix was able to clutch the top spot was because of a fall in Disney’s share price. This fall can be attributed to two main reasons, says analyst at GlobalData, Danyaal Rashid, in an exclusive interview with Mashable.

"Firstly, unlike Netflix, Disney is reliant on ad revenues due to its broadcast offerings, and this revenue stream is drying up rapidly. Secondly, COVID-19 has forced Disney to close its theme parks, which generate more than a third of its revenues, delivering a huge hit to the company’s top line.”

However, not all streaming services share the same fate. The absence of daily activities did benefit visual entertainment, but the opposite happened to audio entertainment. Music streaming suffers a decline throughout this period.

The final tally of all global streams within Spotify’s Top 200 chart in a week from 13 March to 19 March was 1.822 billion streams, down by 226 million or 11% week-on-week.

In the United States, the decline was much bigger. There were about 13.85 billion streams in the same week the global streams were calculated. That was a decrease of over one billion streams, or 8.8%, from 15.188 billion in the previous week. Some may attribute this drop to the absence of new releases.

According to Billboard’s top 100 list in Indonesia, only 2 of the top 10 songs were new releases. This is still comparatively better than the US, which has zero new releases in the top 10 of the hot 100 chart. However, considering the rise in visual streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, the fall in music streams can be tied to other reasons.

One of which is the role music plays in our daily lives. Music is usually a secondary activity to accompany the task at hand. For example, to fill silent gaps on the way to work, you play music. In a crowded café, you plug in earphones to block out external noises to focus on your work. When you’re doing heavy workouts at the gym, you also listen to music to help loosen the tension in your muscles.

Now with most of the world’s commuter and work life on pause, as well as the closure of a lot of the places you’d usually listen to music in, it becomes difficult to determine where music belongs in this new lifestyle. There are mixed feelings about the issue.

Record companies do not see the slowdown in music consumption as a heavily concerning issue, because for them, as long as people at home still have their paid subscriptions, the same amount of money will go into their pockets at the end of the day.

It’s just that the distribution of money according to streams will vary in proportion. For musicians who will feel the effect of varying degrees on their income, it may not necessarily be a good thing, especially if they have a small proportion in the royalty pot to begin with.

In times like these, the future is overshadowed by uncertainties. Whether your company sits on top of the food chain or is preoccupied with trying to keep its performance up to par, sustainable success requires endurance. The way these companies call their subsequent shots may just make it or break it, which makes their moves all the more interesting to follow, and sometimes heart wrenching to witness.