Broadcasters' Super Aggregation Plays
One more set of contenders in the Super Aggregation race
Welcome back to Streaming Made Easy (SME). I’m Marion & this is your 5-min read to get a European take on the Global Streaming Video Business.
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Talking about bundles, there's one contender I overlooked in the Super Aggregation race.
I’ve focused on:
- Big Tech (and their aggregation style)
- CTV platforms
- Pure OTT players
- Pay TV, Internet & mobile operators (how they organise the bundle resistance)
But super aggregation is all about building an ecosystem driven by choice, ease of use and flexibility and then making it available to consumers at scale.
Who has instant access to millions of consumers every day? Broadcasters.
Let me show you how European broadcasters are moving away from building extensions of their TV channel businesses to become full-fledged entertainment hubs where they can super serve local audiences.
Today at a glance:
Why the move?
Who’s active in the space? A quick look at players in 3 markets
What’s their edge?
What makes them vulnerable?
Why the move?
It’s no secret broadcasters have to reinvent themselves as an infinite number of services now compete for our daily attention.
Like in the US, European broadcasters face a structural decline in weekly reach (80.4% in 2022, down 5.9% vs 2017 ) and viewership (3h22 daily time spent in 2022, down 14 mns vs 2017) while their audiences age (young viewers only spent 1h18 per day in 2022, down 28 mns vs 2017) according to the EBU’s 2023 Audience Trends Report.
It calls for an extensive transformation of broadcasting businesses to adapt and build platforms beyond the simple digital extension of their live broadcast operations. Competition like YouTube indeed offers 14B hours videos while Netflix carries over 18,000 titles (which capture 99% of all viewing on the platform).
The last few years have been eventful in the European broadcasting landscape which saw several service launches (or relaunches) where broadcasters showed their true ambitions: to become entertainment destination hubs getting them one step closer to super aggregators than ever before.
Who’s active in the space?
#1 - The UK Play
The UK market has been at the forefront of this trend and I can’t cover everything here (but do check out my piece on Freely and I’ll get to other players in a future piece). Let me focus on ITVX.
ITVX is the next gen version of the ITV Hub launched in December 2023. It brings under one roof:
ITV’s linear channels
FAST channels
On demand programs
The SVOD service BritBox
Branded Corners from partners like Hayu Select, AMC Reality, StudioCanal Presents.
It’s dubbed “The Streaming Home To All Of ITV And So Much More!”.
👉 Grab ITV’s latest performance deck. Here’s a sneak peak:
In case you missed it 🔥
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#2 - The French Play
I’ve written extensively about TF1+ and M6+.
So let me focus instead on their latest partnership announcements:
→ TF1 will onboard channels and on demand catalogues from L’Equipe and Le Figaro TV, the 1st channels to complement the TF1 Group channels and a slate of single-IP FAST channels.
→ Music offering Deezer will land on TF1+ too with its Deezer Sessions, featuring recordings of concerts and other live performances by the hottest artists.
TF1+ positions itself as “the leading free French-language aggregation platform”.
→ M6 announced a partnership with Tomorrowland with a 3-day live available on M6+. Tomorrowland is one of the most sought after festivals, 400K attendees from over 200 countries, 800+ artists, 16 stages, across 10 days. It's 15M followers on Facebook, 11M YouTube subs, 9M on Instagram and 5.8M on TikTok.
It’s a great way for M6+ to attract the >35 year-old demo.
At launch, M6+ stroke a deal with Hayu to bring viewers the best of reality TV, why build it from scratch when you have a specialist in that niche?
👉 Grab TF1 and M6’s latest performance insights.
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#3 - The German Play
I wanted to end with the German market as the two commercial broadcasters (RTL and ProSieben) have two distinct approaches to aggregation and have started cooperating on ad tech which I believe will be crucial to compete with US giants.
RTL+
RTL has a multi-faceted business and decided to position themselves as the German super bundle (priced between 6.99€ and 14.99€ / month) with TV, video, music (with Deezer), podcasts, audio books, concert tickets, magazines. The strategy ressembles the one from the French broadcasters (their content + to some extent some partner services and content). RTL+ had 5.3M subs at the end of Q4 2024 (+17% YoY).
Joyn
ProSieben could be described as the German Hulu as it aggregates its channels and content but also those of other local broadcasters (e.g. ARD, ZDF, Arte etc.). RTL kept its portfolio exclusive to RTL+.
Joyn is first and foremost a Free streaming offer (a premium tier at 6.99€ is available). In Q4 2023, 6.3 million monthly users watched 8.8 billion minutes of video and AVOD revenues increased by 37%.
What’s their edge?
Here’s what makes European Broadcasters contenders to count on in the Super Aggregation space:
→ They are local content champions able to offer culturally relevant and impact making programming (Mr Bates vs the Post Office is the perfect example of that),
→ With scale (80.4% of European reached each week),
→ Backed by powerful ad sales houses (Free TV alone generated 24.8B€ of advertising revenues in 2023).
What makes them vulnerable?
→ At their core, they are ad-supported businesses and super aggregation calls for a combination of paid and free services.
→ To keep and grow their reach, they are dependent on gatekeepers from CTV platforms to Pay TV operators (but who isn’t?).
→ They are media-first businesses competing against Big Tech’s deep pockets and multi-vertical businesses.
Working alone to compete in today’s world will be challenging. One should turn competitors into partners.
That’s it for today but before you go:
Enjoy your weekend and see you next Friday for another edition of Streaming Made Easy!
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