Digital Content Revenues to Pass $200 Billion

A new study from Juniper Research has found that global consumer spend on digital content will reach $202 billion in 2018, with SVOD services as the key driver of the growth.

The $202 billion forecast for 2018 is up by 10 percent from this year’s total of $184 billion. SVOD services will be a main driver of growth, with major OTT players such as Netflix and Amazon committing budgets of more than $5 billion to original content over the coming year. Apple and Facebook are each expected to invest at least $1 billion for the first time.

The Digital Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategies 2017-2022 report also finds that 35 percent of U.K. households now subscribe to one or more SVOD services, a proportion that rises to 76 percent in the U.S. Juniper believes that the trend toward multiple subscriptions per household is increasing, leading to a greater opportunity for content aggregation and curation.

Additionally, the research firm indicates that OTT players may be poised to disrupt the market for major sporting rights. Although Facebook was unsuccessful in its recent bid for the worldwide Indian Premier League cricket rights, the report says that either Amazon or Facebook would bid for, and probably win, at least one major live rights package in the forthcoming auction for England’s Premier League football games. Research author Dr. Windsor Holden said, “Amazon is in a particularly strong position here because sports packages could be bundled within Amazon Prime, with the additional retail spend generated by new customers significantly reducing the scale of net additions required to recoup the rights costs.”