The Evolution of B2C Subscription Video-on-Demand Platforms : Through power, efficiency, capability, and identity lenses
Vehmas, Ville-Pekka (2023-12-09)
09.12.2023
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe20231209152648
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe20231209152648
Tiivistelmä
This research aims to understand the reasons behind the evolution of the subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) industry from its inception in 2007 to the end of 2023. The industry is ex-amined through a theoretical framework of four lenses of power, efficiency, capabilities, and identity to create holistic and synergetic knowledge behind the industry and its changes. The research offers a novel perspective and examines and fills the research gaps in the SVoD industry’s evolution. This research uses semi-structured interviews to collect data from nine SVoD industry experts and customers.
The SVoD business is a nascent industry, with hundreds of millions of active subscribers and enormous investments in the services’ development and content catalogs. However, the industry faces difficulties, with many competitors experiencing less than satisfactory financial results or exits from the market.
The research findings suggest that the SVoD industry has evolved tremendously in only a short time. The industry originated from a modest starting point, where small companies took advantage of new technological capabilities and innovations, enabling a new form of business to emerge and challenge the entertainment industry's value chains and traditional competitors. The success of the industry, especially during the years of COVID-19 that accel-erated its growth, attracted many competitors quickly, transforming it into a significant and large industry driven by aggressive competition and controlled by some of the largest com-panies in the world.
The industry's early years were characterized by significant investments in attempts to pene-trate the market to gain an extensive audience and significant market share. However, the recent developments suggest that the industry has entered a new phase, where the compa-nies' focus has shifted towards sustaining their position in the market and achieving profita-bility through customer retention, new business practices, and revenue streams.
The conceptions of power, efficiency, capabilities, and identity strongly interact in the indus-try, with a change in one conception impacting one or several others. The results both rein-force and expand on the learnings from the previous literature.
The SVoD business is a nascent industry, with hundreds of millions of active subscribers and enormous investments in the services’ development and content catalogs. However, the industry faces difficulties, with many competitors experiencing less than satisfactory financial results or exits from the market.
The research findings suggest that the SVoD industry has evolved tremendously in only a short time. The industry originated from a modest starting point, where small companies took advantage of new technological capabilities and innovations, enabling a new form of business to emerge and challenge the entertainment industry's value chains and traditional competitors. The success of the industry, especially during the years of COVID-19 that accel-erated its growth, attracted many competitors quickly, transforming it into a significant and large industry driven by aggressive competition and controlled by some of the largest com-panies in the world.
The industry's early years were characterized by significant investments in attempts to pene-trate the market to gain an extensive audience and significant market share. However, the recent developments suggest that the industry has entered a new phase, where the compa-nies' focus has shifted towards sustaining their position in the market and achieving profita-bility through customer retention, new business practices, and revenue streams.
The conceptions of power, efficiency, capabilities, and identity strongly interact in the indus-try, with a change in one conception impacting one or several others. The results both rein-force and expand on the learnings from the previous literature.