SkyShowtime’s European launch appears to be bucking the trend of newer players to the market struggling to make an impact.
The CEO of Europe’s latest streaming service – SkyShowtime – has been chatting up the prospects of the market in Europe, stating that on the continent at least, things are still on the rise.
If you haven’t heard of SkyShowtime before, that’s because it’s not available here in the UK or Ireland or anywhere else where Sky is already available. Despite the fact that much of the past year has been dominated by talk of streaming platforms hitting a ceiling in the form of market saturation, when it comes to Europe at least, Monty Sarhan disagrees.
As they note, “if you look at the number of subscriptions per household and hours consumed, they’re all on the rise,” says Sarhan, comparing Europe to the US’s ‘mature’ streaming market. “It’s very early days. So, we think we’re well positioned. We think that there’s a lot of growth. Streaming as an industry has only been around for about 15 years. So this is going to continue to grow.”
It’s a pretty bold prediction given that we’ve already seen other major players such as Netflix struggle in other markets, not to mention that as a new entrant to the market, gaining a foothold in any territory where the likes of Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV+ Prime Video are all firmly established is a major, major hurdle. To this point, Lionsgate announced just last week that it is pulling its on streaming service from some European countries.
Still, with the way the business is evolving, there’s a feeling that Sky especially will need to make this work on some level to continue reinventing itself. The company does have some solid partnerships with Hollywood studios such as Paramount and Universal in place, and if Sarhan is right about the continued opportunity for growth in European markets, then this could prove to be a shrewd success in an area where other new players are struggling to make a splash.
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