Internet streaming is a serious competitive threat to broadcast television in South Africa, but the technology is hamstrung by cost challenges, says an analyst.<\/p>\n
“There is no doubt that internet streaming is a viable competitor to broadcast television… if you can afford and are able to get the requisite bandwidth,” Andrew Fraser told Fin24.<\/p>\n
Fraser is the former head of Sony Mobile SA and a TV show producer.<\/p>\n
Last week, multinational media and internet company Naspers launched ShowMax, an internet streaming company created to compete in a growing market with MultiChoice’s BoxOffice, MTN’s FrontRow and Times Media Group’s Vidi.<\/p>\n
The ShowMax launch also comes after Netflix said earlier this year that it plans to launch in more markets, such as South Africa, by the end of 2016.<\/p>\n
But Fraser warned that while these services could potentially upend the local business model for broadcast TV, the cost of data would keep it exclusive.<\/p>\n
“So for now, this will really be limited to the top part of the market who have access to reasonably fast DSL or fibre connections.”<\/p>\n
Threats<\/strong><\/p>\n In the UK streaming TV is proving a serious challenge to the BBC which suffered a \u00a3150m licence shortfall as consumers switched to the alternate technology.<\/p>\n Streaming technology would, however, likely challenge MultiChoice first before affecting local public broadcaster the SABC, said Fraser.<\/p>\n “Streaming is a much bigger threat to a subscription Pay TV company like DStv, where the customer profile (especially in the Premium package) is most likely to have the required connectivity,” Fraser said.<\/p>\n However, South Africa’s impending shift to digital terrestrial television (DTT) offers broadcasters a wide range of tools to deliver content, said Fraser.<\/p>\n SA missed the international June 2015 International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline to roll out DTT. But government is getting ready to start the switch-over after it announced winners of a key set-top box tender earlier this year.<\/p>\n “How broadcasters will evolve as content platforms is really up to them. One thing that DTT offers is a more efficient use of bandwidth. That means being able to deliver a significantly larger amount of channels in the same bandwidth.”<\/p>\n Source: News24<\/a><\/p>\n ShowMax versus DStv \u2013 the fight is on<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nMore on streaming<\/h3>\n