Content exclusivity in the streaming industry is fading away, leading to a wider audience reach and extended content shelf-life
The 2010s were seen as being an era of exclusivity. During this time, platforms spent huge amounts of money and resources to lock their content down, in an attempt to boost user acquisition. In 2020, Microsoft kicked off a bidding war when they paid Ninja $30 million to migrate all of his games to the Mixer streaming service.
In a short period of time, Twitch and YouTube released streaming contracts which came with exclusivity clauses for streamers. Spotify was also very aggressive in its approach to locking down podcasters. They began to pull shows from elsewhere and this forced fans to pay up or miss out.
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Content Exclusivity is Failing
Content exclusivity started to crumble in June 2023. This was around the time news broke that Warner Brothers were in talks with Netflix to license HBO shows. Major streaming services including YouTube and Twitch are also becoming far less territorial. Twitch has lifted their requirements about cross-streaming and YouTube has stopped forcing people to sign huge deals to keep content exclusive. By removing the limitations of exclusive content, media companies extend the shelf-life of their content.
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They can also target a much bigger audience, which benefits everyone. Even though deals are often signed between streaming providers, they tend to focus less on exclusivity and instead, focus on targeting the biggest audience base possible. With that being said, limitations are still in place to control content distribution. Geographical restrictions are still important, to maintain control over what is shown and where.
Exploring Geographical Segmentation
Even though exclusivity is becoming more and more obsolete, companies still use segmentation as a way to limit who can watch what. An audience in Canada may be able to access a show that someone in the UK cannot, purely because the cost of pursuing the rights is too great, or because they want to stagger the rollout of the show to maximize viewers. This isn’t just happening in the streaming sector either. It’s happening in the casino sector too. You might be able to play certain online slot games in Canada but not in the UK or New Zealand. By limiting the audience, casino sites can make it easier to manage different currencies. Some sites even have dedicated sites for different countries, such as having an online slots Canada site, with games such as Raptor Doublemax or Vikings go Berzerk, and then another one for New Zealand or Australia.
By doing this it becomes easier to give people the support that they need too. Someone in the UK will be in a different time zone to residents of the US, so having sites locked down geographically can mean that people can always get in touch with someone if they need to. By adopting limitations like geographical segmentation over exclusivity regarding titles, it becomes possible for people to access the content they want, but at the same time, it also gives companies the chance to control distribution on a higher level. Exclusivity is dead, and the industry is better for it, but that doesn’t mean that streaming companies are providing a free-for-all on content.
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