For the second episode of ▶▶FAST FORWARD, Klaus Goldhammer shared his insights into what the future holds for the streaming market, in the EU and globally.

We took a closer look to explore the current extraordinary situation. What changed in the VoD landscape since March 2020? Do people now only sit at home and watch VoD? Did Disney+ reach its goals? Where is the streaming video ecosystem at, and where is it heading to?

Klaus Goldhammer is a strategy consultant and media analyst. With a background in journalism, where his beat was media markets, and a distinguished academic career in media and communication studies, Klaus Goldhammer is renowned as an expert, educator and speaker with a clear-eyed view of shifting media landscapes in Germany, Europe and beyond.

Klaus has held the post of honorary professor of media economics at the Freie Universität Berlin since 2011, having previously taught at the university’s Institute for Journalism and Communication sciences and at the RFH University of Applied Sciences in Cologne.

The talk was followed by a Q&A moderated by AC Coppens, CEO/Founder of THE CATALYSTS.

This webcast was also covered by Blickpunkt:Film. Read the full article (in German) here.

▶▶ More about Klaus:

In 1998, Klaus founded Goldmedia, a consulting and research group with a focus on media, gaming and entertainment industries, telecommunication and broadband infrastructures, IoT-services and e-commerce.

Klaus is Managing Director and Partner at Goldmedia’s Berlin location and with an emphasis on forecasting, strategic business development, market analysis and coaching, where he manages a wide portfolio of clients and projects, spanning both the private and public sectors, such as the EU, ministries, regulators, associations and organizations.

As Managing Editor of the European Communication Council (ECC) from 1997- 1999, Klaus was among the leading independent European and North American scholars of communication economics that published E-Conomics: Strategies for the Digital Economy (in German, Die Internet-Ökonomie: Strategien für die digitale Wirtschaft) — a landmark anthology for the field, currently in its third edition.

Klaus Goldhammer is also a speaker, consultant and moderator at conferences, strategy and business workshops in Germany and abroad, including the dmexco, Medientage Munich, NAB Radio Conference and others, where he shares insights into the future of media and digital transformation, VoD and Influencer Marketing.

References, links and resources from Klaus’ talk:

▶▶ Goldmedia’s VoD-Ratings offer the possibility to create in-depth analyses of VoD usage on Pay-VoD portals such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sky, Disney Life. Data can be modeled according to freely selectable time intervals and many further specifications. The usable data pool comprises all of the approx. 3.5 million titles available across all relevant Pay-VoD platforms in Europe.

▶▶ Streaming has intersected very directly with EU data politics in the current pandemic situation: YouTube reduced the quality of its videos in Europe, as an increase in home usage strains the continent’s internet during the novel coronavirus outbreak.

▶▶ Klaus’ presentation was followed by a Q&A session, with questions from the audience including: where does he see linear TV in 5 years from now in Germany? Does Klaus expect "Mediatheken" and/or platforms like Joyn to be able to increase their paid subscription market share? How does he think overall willingness to pay in Germany will develop? Will there be a pricing war between Disney+, Amazon and Netflix? Further questions were related to whether with TikTok hiring top Disney Execs will we see Chinese players take some share of the European Entertainment market?

▶▶ A part of the conversation was dedicated to the relaxation/breaking of theatrical windows in Covid times, with titles such as “Trolls” being released directly on premium video-on-demand, that led to a fight between AMC Theatres and Universal Pictures. European independent cinema distributors also adopted this strategy.

▶▶ As we have seen, the film and TV industry has been heavily impacted by lockdowns, with projects and releases postponed, sometimes indefinitely. Klaus mentions that Netflix has been powering ahead on production in spite of the situation. What will be the next steps for resuming production globally? Last month, countries like Iceland and South Korea that had more success tackling the virus were home to ongoing Netflix productions.

▶▶ Global streaming platforms have the ability to invest and produce more projects, because they know they can refinance those projects through their access to a global audience. But for national platforms, a streaming production like Babylon Berlin, made possible through the partnership between Sky and ARD, can only come along once in a while, as there is a much smaller audience and it is harder to refinance your work.

The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) officially entered into force on 19th December 2018 and aims to guarantee a 30% share of European works on subscription video on demand (SVoD) Can this regulation improve the situation for European countries in the long term platforms. This text gives a good critical perspective on the quotas.

▶▶ Netflix’s main competitors are social media platforms, such as YouTube, this text gives interesting insights on the Netflix-Youtube rivalry.