The former chief digital officer of Seven West Media, Clive Dickens, believes that the current state of the streaming market is not sustainable.
Dickens, who launched a new consultancy Meliora this week, said that locally-owned SVOD-only products are unsustainable, and BVODs that do not offer a subscription tier are also missing a trick.
In Australia, that might have posed a problem for Foxtel’s Kayo and BINGE, however the business has recently been acquired by the global sports streamer DAZN.
“The SVOD market is either a global or pan-regional business,” Dickens said. “Whether that’s Apple TV, whether it’s Amazon, whether it’s Disney; locally-owned SVODs are increasingly unsustainable.
“What is sustainable are BVOD products with a subscription layer, because BVOD is very, very important. You can look all around the world for great examples, such as ITVx.
“But what you can’t have is a BVOD product without subscription, and you can’t have an SVOD without ads.”
Dickens believes that it is in the BVOD space where the opportunity lies but it requires Australian broadcasters to collaborate much more.
In the UK, for example, broadcasters have launched Freely, which provides content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in a single app.
Australia had discussed launching something similar in 2107 through the Freeview app, but this collapse and today the app serves as a TV guide.
“They should be collaborating more as an industry around, doing the point of difference around local content,” Dickens said. “There’s a lot of work to do and it’s a really exciting time to deploy those changes.”
There are three other areas in which media companies can sharpen their act. An easy win for broadcasters, argues Dickens, are media-for-equity deals.
“They’ve all got unsold inventory, a massive amount of supply, whether it’s digital supply or broadcast supply, and they should be looking to make more investments in consumer facing startups without supply through media for equity deals,” he said.
“(At Meliora), we’ll be talking to media companies all over the world about media for equity. It’s a brilliant way to grow shareholder value, to utilise supply and air time, and also it allows you to grow that revenue stream.”
Deregulation should be another focus for Australian media companies. “The Australian media market is so over regulated, and therefore media companies, whether it’s in audio or publishing or in outdoor or video are spending too much money trying to move market share around, revenue share or audience share,” he said.
Dickens said the industry needs a more AI-friendly regulatory framework to allow companies to invest in other areas, such as consumer experience, which he believes is lacking in this market.
An example Dickens uses is that at Nine – where he is “a very loyal customer” – he gets billed separately for the SMH, Stan and AFR.
This contrasts with the likes of Apple and Amazon that have a single account across their product range.
“Customer experience, and particularly around billing, around subscription services, is a huge miss in the Australian market,” he added.
