David Chamberlain is a co-founder of video animation specialist Viddyoze and says Amazon Prime’s streaming of Premier League football provides a glimpse into the future.
A piece of Premier League history was made earlier this month (December) when an entire round of fixtures were streamed online via Amazon Prime.
The event – which will be repeated again on Boxing Day when another tranche of 10 Premier League matches will be screened live by Amazon – threatens traditional broadcasting methods and provides a glimpse into the future of what watching football will look like.
The mass streaming was hugely significant moment and will be the start of a revolution rather than the end of an experiment.
At Viddyoze we offer a fully automated video animation service because we recognise the fact that people increasingly digest video as a means to communicate a message. People don’t read newspapers as much as they used to.
People want to watch and digest content and that’s why businesses need to respond. Kids are watching YouTube, teenagers are streaming from sites like Twitch. That audience isn’t going to read an entire website so businesses must adapt their content for every generation but especially the youth.
Amazon Prime have recognised the amount of time people spend on their mobile is going up and it’s only going to grow further. We’re all going to be watching video on mobile rather than turning the TV on. People want Netflix on their iPad while they’re on a train or on a plane.
The TV has changed. People don’t tune in at 9pm to watch something these days. I use my TV to watch Netflix and the TV has essentially become a large smartphone.
The Amazon Prime screening went well because it made football accessible to everybody who can’t afford to spend £100 a month on football.
Encouraging people to sign up a free Amazon Prime account in exchange for watching Premier League football was a guaranteed winner.
But it goes beyond football. You can get a Netflix account for £8.99 a month and there’s so much content available there less need for traditional channels like the BBC and ITV.
Amazon are building a Netflix model and they’re coming after the football market. Advertising is migrating away from traditional TV. It’s estimated that between 2019 and 2021 online video advertising will go up from $45bn to $61bn. Over the same time TV advertising is expected to fall from $183bn to $180bn. It’s a relatively small fall but it’s significant.
We’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to video content and streaming. It’s the reason Viddyoze has invested £100,000 in a new education platform that will turn novices into expert videographers, capable of creating profitable video content for their business.
What’s certain is that after the latest round of Premier League matches on Boxing Day the biggest winner will be Amazon Prime.