Streaming wars heat up as rivals queue up to challenge Netflix

Yahoo – AFP, Rob Lever, March 17, 2019

Netflix has taken the lead in streaming to expand into 190 markets but is now facing
some deep-pocketed rivals including Apple and Disney (AFP Photo/ROBYN BECK)

Washington (AFP) - Some of the biggest names in media and tech are gearing up to move into streaming, in what could be a major challenge to market leader Netflix.

Apple is expected to make its move with an announcement March 25 on its media plans, with a war chest estimated at some $1 billion and partners including stars like Jennifer Aniston and director J.J. Abrams involved in content.

Walt Disney Co. has announced its new streaming service Disney+ will launch this year, as will another from WarnerMedia, the newly acquired media-entertainment division of AT&T.

The new entrants, with more expected, could launch a formidable challenge to Netflix, which has some 140 million paid subscribers in 190 markets, and to other services such as Amazon and Hulu.

"It's really going to change the industry," said Alan Wolk, co-founder of the consulting firm TVREV who follows the sector.

Wolk said he sees seven or eight powerful players in streaming which will lead to "huge competition for new shows and hit shows."

These rivals are coming into the segment which has been transformed by the spectacular growth of Netflix and a growing movement by consumers to on-demand television delivered over internet platforms.

In the US alone, an estimated six million consumers have dropped pay TV bundles since 2012, while on-demand services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon have been surging, according to Leichtman Research.

But just as Netflix has disrupted traditional "linear" television, rivals are now moving to disrupt Netflix.

Strong name recognition and sought-after content is liekly to make Disney a

formidable competitor in streaming television (AFP Photo/Alberto E. Rodriguez)ls)."

Feeling pain

Netflix is likely to feel pain, not only from the new rivals, but also from the loss of content from the big libraries of Disney and Time Warner.

These Hollywood firms "have big libraries, so the cost of their content is much lower than it will be for Netflix, which has to pay for all its content," said Laura Martin, analyst with the research firm Needham & Co.

"Netflix will lose subscribers to these new entrants," Martin said.

AT&T's WarnerMedia will launch its service later this year that combines the content from its premium HBO channel (known for "Game of Thrones") and the vast Time Warner library or films and shows.

Disney's service will have its films and TV shows, along with the library it is acquiring from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, a deal closing in the coming days. That includes the "Star Wars" and Marvel superhero franchises and ABC television content.

JP Morgan analyst Alexia Quadrani predicts Disney will eventually scale up to become as big as Netflix, or even bigger by signing up 45 million US subscribers and 115 million internationally.

Quadrani cited Disney's "unmatched brand recognition, extensive premium content, and unparalleled ecosystem to market the service."

The analyst said Disney benefits from its global ecosystem that develops good customer relationships from its theme parks, hotels, cruises, and consumer products.

Wolk agreed that Disney "is in a good spot" because of its strong brand and content but predicted that consumers may be overwhelmed by the growing options.

"I think there will be a lot of churn," Wolk said. "People will subscribe to one service to watch one show, and then it becomes easy to cancel and take another."

Jennifer Aniston is one of the Hollywood stars Apple is counting on as it prepares

to launch its streaming video service (AFP Photo/Alberto E. Rodriguez)

No panic, yet

Some analysts say Netflix has no reason to panic -- yet.

"Netflix has figured this business out, they know what consumers want," said Dan Rayburn, a streaming media analyst with Frost & Sullivan.

But Rayburn said that over time, rivals may be able to leverage their user base and infrastructure to eat away at Netflix's advantage.

"What does Netflix own? Nothing," Rayburn said.

"If you're Amazon or AT&T you can give this stuff away and be a loss leader, that's the big value."

Still, he said any company that wants to challenge Netflix needs to be "quick and nimble" and that it remains to be seen if the legacy players can do that.

Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research also questioned the capability of the legacy entertainment firms to compete in the world of new media.

"We believe legacy media has missed their window to compete with Netflix (and other tech platforms) unless they are willing to truly go all-in," Greenfield said in a recent research note.

The streaming service from AT&T's Warner Media will include 

programs from HBO such as "Game Of Thrones," whose star 

Emilia Clarke is seen here (AFP Photo/Alberto E. Rodriguez)

'Innovator's dilemma'

Greenfield said that means moving the focus away from the box office and getting better control of content.

"Disney is battling a classic innovator's dilemma that makes it hard for them to truly pivot to direct-to-consumer, not to mention, they and the rest of legacy media do not really appreciate how important technology is to success in direct-to-consumer streaming," Greenfield wrote.

Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities said Apple could be the wild card, but that the iPhone maker might need to acquire a content provider like CBS or Sony Pictures to be a major player.

Apple "is definitely playing from behind the eight ball in this content arms race with Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Hulu, and AT&T/Time Warner all going after this next consumer frontier," Ives said in a note to clients.

"While acquisitions have not been in Apple's core DNA, the clock has struck midnight for Cupertino in our opinion and building content organically is a slow and arduous path, which highlights the clear need for Apple to do larger, strategic (deals}."

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings gives a keynote address, January 6, 2016 at the
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

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"Wild Cards" (3) - Nov 19 - 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"... Then there was Steve Jobs. He was a wild card. What he did had little to do with technology, for that would have happened anyway soon enough. Instead, it had to do with the paradigm of the business of music on Earth. He freed it, and the paradigm of how music is obtained and heard will never be the same. However, Steve Jobs did basically one thing for all of you, and then he died. Do you see any kind of connecting of the dots to some of the inventors who come and give you the one thing, then leave? If he had lived, would there be more? Yes, but you’re not ready for it. Consciousness has to support what happens. ..."

Murdoch's News Corp calls for Google breakup

Yahoo – AFP, March 12, 2019

News organisations accuse tech giants such as Google and Facebook of gaining huge
commercial benefit from expensive to create content, while paying nothing and syphoning
off advertising (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ)

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has called for Google to be broken up in Australia, the latest salvo in a battle between the corporate media giants.

In a petition to Australian regulators, News Corp's local subsidiary complained that "Google enjoys overwhelming market power in both online search and ad tech services."

Going a step further, the company accused Google of "abusing its dominant position to the detriment of consumers, advertisers and publishers."

Earlier this week US presidential hopeful -- and former federal consumer watchdog -- Elizabeth Warren became the latest in a line of commentators to argue that firms such as Amazon, Google and Facebook hold " too much power" in society.

News Corp echoed her argument that Google's businesses should be split, or failing that, search and advertising businesses should be firewalled off from each other.

"While News Corp Australia recognises that divestment is a very serious step ... divestment is necessary in the case of Google, due to the unparalleled power that it currently exerts over news publishers and advertisers alike."

Australian watchdogs are seen as unlikely to recommend that Google be split, but the petition represents an intensification of the worldwide fight between Australian-born Murdoch and Google and Facebook.

News organisations accuse the tech giants of gaining huge commercial benefit from expensive to create content, while paying nothing and syphoning off advertising.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is one of several regulators across the world investigating the effect that digital platforms have on competition in the media, advertising and advertising services markets.

News organisations in Australia have struggled in recent years with falling revenue and shrinking staff, as giants like Google and Facebook dominate the digital economy.

The downturn has prompted a string of mergers that have left the market with only three or four major media companies.

Local newspapers, once the lifeblood of communities across this vast country, run on a skeletal staff or have been forced to close.

Murdoch's News Corp is a dominant player, owning a slew of Australian newspapers and the largest television news channel, and is the majority owner of the Foxtel pay television operations.

Murdoch's vast political influence has frequently come under fire from former prime ministers on both sides of Australian politics and is widely seen as pushing the tone of public debate to the right.

News Corp Australia is a subsidiary of US-based News Corp, which owns the Wall Street Journal and newspapers in Britain. Murdoch and his family also control the media-entertainment conglomerate 21st Century Fox, owner of the Fox News Channel.

News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, seen here in 2017, is urging Facebook

to pay "trusted" news organizations for content, in the same way cable TV operators

pay for channels (AFP Photo/AL BELLO)

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"From Dark to Light" + "Discovery", US (3), June 24 - 25, 2017 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)  (Text version "From Dark to Light") 

"... Marketing the Drama and Unseen Truth

Number three: There are some very old energies in your society and in your culture that have always been the same and represent past Human nature, and you have to decide what to do with them. You may not be able to change them, but you have a choice on what to do with them.

If you believe in the shift and you are starting to think more positive, then let me tell you something that will help. There is light on this planet that is not being reported. There is the beginning of high consciousness ideas and new thought about the future of humanity in very powerful places. These are seeds of new thought that are beginning to grow, and some of them make so much sense and are elegant, yet you'll never know about them. The reason? Your media is filled with the old dark consciousness of drama above all else and many of you willingly create a platform to sustain it.

Some of you will come home from work and feel it's a nice idea to turn on the media and watch all of the horrible things that happened on the planet that day. Perhaps you don't want the news, so you go for entertainment instead. So you turn on a program where you can watch families in drama, arguing and complaining. What I'm telling you, dear ones, is that your media is broken, and you watch it anyway.

Right now, it continues in the old energy and the management in charge thinks it knows best what you and your neighbors want. So it's going to deliver darkness on a regular basis, and if there's nothing dark, it will create it for you. That is what you're faced with. Here is my advice. Select the media carefully that you believe is true and accurate. Wouldn't you rather have fun things to watch? Perhaps you'd like to watch cute pets or animals doing fun things? How about children doing amazing and hilarious things, or great stories of heroism with uplifting endings? How about amazing nature or comedy that is hilarious? Right now with new devices, you can see all of that as much as you want, without commercials. This is the newest trend and evolution of your media selection - personal control over programs in your home, without commercial interruption. Did you see this happening and wonder why now?

So the solution to drama-biased media is simple: Don't watch or listen to standard broadcast! Instead, find out about the alternates and be selective. Select news that is less biased in bringing you full-time drama. Of course, you need to stay in touch with what is happening, but you don't have to accept a program that is dedicated to enhancing and promoting the drama of the day and making it worse - or that gives no news at all about the good things going on.

I say this because broadcast not only is broken, it's dangerous, since it gives false impressions of the overview of the planet. They are stuck in the old energy and haven't caught up yet with the overview of what might really be happening on the planet. Not yet. Even the channels that will give you supposedly good education and history are biased in ways that you would not even expect. They continue to believe in slanting even historic or documentary stories to be horrific and dark. They believe that is what people really want.

What would happen if these companies started programming things people really wanted to watch? What would happen is exactly what they want, and their revenues would go up! I hope they're listening. There will come some day, dear ones, where there'll be more than one good news channel and you can tune in to hear the most heroic and heart-rendering things that have happened on that day on the planet. It will be balanced, perhaps with some other things that also happened. But it will be a balance that you have not seen yet anywhere. ...."

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…6 - The News

Number six. I'll be brief. Watch for your news to change. It has to. When the media realizes that Human Beings are changing their watching habits, they're going to start changing what they produce for you to watch. Eventually, there's going to be something called "The Good News Channel," and it will be very attractive indeed. For it will be real and offset the drama of what is today's attraction. This is what families at night, sitting around the table, will wish to watch. They'll have something where the whole picture of a situation is shown and not just the dramatic parts. You will hear about what's happening on the planet that no one is telling you now, and when that occurs [we have no clock, dear one], it's going to compete strongly with the drama. I keep telling you this. Human nature itself is starting to be in color instead of black and white. Watch for it. And that was number six ….”

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. ”

Peer-to-peer lending via the internet hits £250m

BBC News, By Simon Gompertz, Personal finance correspondent, 8 June 2012

Savings and Investment 

• Will investment charges become clearer?
• Q&A: Is Santander UK a safe bank?
• Three years of record-low rates
• Families hide wealth to avoid care fees

Lynne Martin's money is spread
 among hundreds of borrowers, thus
reducing risk

Lending via three websites that link savers with borrowers - bypassing the banking system - has topped £250m.

The "new age" finance carries no protection for deposits, but is being tipped as a serious threat to traditional banks.

The peer-to-peer sites are led by Zopa, which has lent more than £200m since it started in 2005.

Funding Circle, specialising in business loans, has topped £34m, and RateSetter has reached £24m.

Last month the government said it would lend these sort of firms £100m to help expand their own lending to businesses.

"It's a marketplace, the eBay for money," says Lynne Martin from Hertfordshire, a foot technician in her late 50s who has been using Zopa to build up a nest egg for retirement.

Higher returns

Lynne was fed up with the returns she was getting from banks and pension plans.

So she has lent a substantial part of her savings via the website, spreading it between hundreds of borrowers and by-passing the banking system.

The interest from the latest £5,000 is 7.4% a year before tax but after taking into account Zopa's 1% charge.

That is substantially more than is available on a typical savings account at a bank.

On the other side of the ledger, Jamie Hirst from Chippenham in Wiltshire has borrowed £4,500 through Zopa to cover the cost of a revamp of his kitchen and bathroom.

The 8.4% APR he is paying is 5% less than he was quoted by his bank.

"I thought it was brilliant," he told the BBC's Your Money.

"The fact that there wasn't some fat cat taking the profits, just some guy investing 50 or a hundred quid to get a little return and doing something good for someone else."

The drawbacks

There is a significant drawback for savers: the lack of any guarantee that you will get your money back.

Peer-to-peer lending, as it is known, does not qualify for protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which provides security up to £85,000 per bank, for each saver.

The peer-to-peer sites put their loan applicants through credit checks and Zopa says it divides people's savings into £10 chunks which are spread between borrowers, to minimise any risk.

On average, so far, its lenders have lost 0.5% of their money as a result of borrowers defaulting.

But Lynne Martin predicts the concept is bound to catch on more widely.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," she says.

"This is a new asset class. It's not a share and it's not a bank account."

Official support?

Lynne has support from a director of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, who suggested in March that peer-to-peer lenders could replace High Street banks. 

Jamie Hirst has been able to borrow
 money at a cheaper rate than from
his bank

"There is no reason why end-savers and end-investors cannot connect directly," he explained.

"The banking middle men may in time become the surplus links in the chain."

Lynne is hoping the interest she is earning will help pay for her to retire to the West Country, a hope which highlights an interesting feature of peer-to-peer lending.

Much of the money has been moving across generations, from older people looking for a decent income to younger borrowers setting up in life and desperate to keep down the cost of taking a loan.

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"The New Paradigm of Reality" Part I/II – Feb 12, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" (without a manager hierarchy) managed Businesses, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)

IMF says targeted debt reduction policies can work

The IMF has said that targeted household debt reduction policies can deliver significant economic benefits.

RTE News, 10 April 2012 

Latest IMF report notes link between
 high levels of household debt and the
effect on economic recovery

The IMF has said that targeted household debt reduction policies - including mortgage write-downs - can deliver significant economic benefits.

The International Monetary Fund made the comments in its latest World Economic Outlook.

The IMF said such policies can substantially mitigate the negative effect of household deleveraging on economic activity.

The report noted the well established link between high levels of household debt run up during a housing boom, and the effect of a high debt overhang on economic recovery.

It found that countries, like Ireland, that saw house prices and household borrowing skyrocket, saw a longer than average period of recession after the bursting of the housing bubble.

A large part of this protracted recession it said is due to households trying to reduce their debt levels, which in turn leads to less spending in the economy, driving the recession deeper and further.

"Because debt is acting as a brake on economic growth, it is important to unstick the brake" said the report's author Daniel Leigh.

The IMF has studied the response of a number of countries to situations where large parts of the population are burdened with high mortgage debt in a recession, and finds that such programmes can help prevent self-reinforcing cycles of falling house prices and lower aggregate demand.

"Such policies are particularly relevant for economies with limited scope for expansionary macroeconomic policies and in which the financial sector has already received government report", notes the conclusions. Ireland meets both these criteria.

The report highlighted what it calls the "bold " household debt reduction programmes implemented in the US in the 1930's and in Iceland in this crisis, which it said can "significantly reduce the number of household defaults and foreclosures and substantially reduce debt repayment burdens''.

It contrasted these examples with others that have not been successful, such as the current response to the crisis in the US and Hungary, and the policies pursued in Colombia and the Scandinavian countries in the 90's.

As well as the "bold" approach, it said that ensuring a strong banking sector is crucial during the period of household deleveraging. It stated that the policies in Colombia and Hungary were not a success as they placed too much burden on an already fragile banking sector.

It also said the policies must be designed to have incentives for both banks and borrowers to participate, notably by offering a viable alternative to default and foreclosure.

The IMF noted that government support for household debt restructuring programmes involves clear winners and losers. "The friction caused by such redistribution may be one reason why such policies have rarely been used in the past, except when the magnitude of the problem was substantial and the ensuing social and political pressures considerable",' it stated.

It cited another study which found that political systems tend to become more polarised in the wake of financial crises, and raised the question of collective action problems - that distressed mortgage borrowers may be less politically organised than banks - and this can hamper efforts to implement household debt restructuring.

In the US in the 1930's the Roosevelt administration introduced the Home Owners Loan Corporation, which bought distressed mortgages from banks with government bonds, with federal guarantees on principal and interest. It then restructured these mortgages to make them more affordable to borrowers.

80% of the restructured loans (some 800,000) were protected from repossession by the measure, and the mortgages were subsequently sold on over time for a nominal profit at the time the programme was brought to an end in 1951. The mortgage purchases amounted to 8.4% of 1933's GDP in the US.

The IMF said "a key feature of the HOLC was the effective transfer of funds to credit constrained households with distressed balance sheets and a high marginal propensity to consume, which mitigated the negative effects on aggregate demand" caused by the recession and need for household deleveraging.

The main mechanism to make loans more affordable was to extend the term of the mortgage - sometimes doubling the term - and converting it from a variable to a fixed rate. In a number of cases the HOLC also wrote off part of the principal to ensure that no loans exceeded 80% of the appraised value of the house.

In the case of Iceland the situation was more difficult, due in part to the much bigger proportion of the population that was affected, and to the wide presence of foreign currency mortgages.

The government and the newly constructed Icelandic banks developed a template to be used in case by case restructuring discussions between borrowers and lenders. The templates facilitated substantial debt write-downs designed to align secured debt with the supporting collateral (i.e bring the loan into line with the value of the house) and align debt service with the ability to repay.

The IMF found that such case by case negotiations safeguard property rights and reduce moral hazard, but they take time. As of January of this year, only 35% of the case by case restructuring applications had been processed. To speed things up, Iceland has introduced a debt forgiveness plan which writes down deeply underwater mortgages to 110% of the households' pledgeable assets.

It noted that only when a comprehensive framework was put in place and a clear expiration date for relief measures announced that debt write-downs finally took off. As of January 2012, 15 to 20% of all Icelandic mortgages have been or are in the process of being written down.

However, it said the jury is still out on Iceland's plans, and said the extent to which Iceland can put its citizens back on their feet and minimise moral hazard remains to be seen.

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Channel:  Wanderer of the Skies - April 14, 2012

“… Your nation of Iceland is being used as a testing ground for the rolling out of financial strategies for the betterment of your planet. It would be wise to follow their progress in this respect, as it will be the fate of all nations in a very brief period of time. We have always advised you that such an action would never come from the larger powers and nations of the world, but they will follow in lockstep once the actions begin their domino effect…..”  New !