SME#19: Europeans excel at streaming too
Streaming Made Easy #19
Welcome back to Streaming Made Easy. This week, we take a look at a German streamer to showcase how we, Europeans, excel at streaming too.
Today at a glance:
Analysis: Europeans excel at streaming too
Streamer snapshot: DAZN Rise, a FAST channel dedicated to women’s sports
Content recommendation: The Blue Caftan
💡 Analysis:
US streamers get all the light. It’s fair, they have a global footprint, therefore a global impact.
Now does that mean that the rest of the world is falling behind? No, they just play a different music partition, often a local one.
A great example of local success in streaming is RTL+, the streaming service from German commercial broadcaster RTL.
What is RTL+?
RTL+ is a streaming video service mixing Ad-Supported and Premium business models, a Video and Audio offering.
They went hybrid long before Netflix, HBO Max or Disney+ did with their tiered pricing structure:
By the end of 2022, RTL+ had 4.016M subscribers (a 48.1% increase vs December 2021). Across the RTL Group, the total base sits at 5.5M subscribers across Germany, Netherlands (Videoland) and Hungary (RTL+). Streaming revenue grew by 19.7% to €267 million. Group profits halved though (1.05B€) as it invested heavily in its creative and streaming businesses.
What content do they offer?
RTL+ can rely on the broadcast rights bought by its TV channels which range from Tier 1 sports (UEFA Europa League, NFL), reality TV formats (Let’s dance, Bachelor in Paradise), movie output deals (Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount) and their slate of original series (Sisi, Der König von Palma).
Their super bundle ambition
They put aggregation at the core of their value proposition.
They indeed aggregate live channels, video on demand assets and in August 2022, they launched the RTL+ Musik app which includes more than 90 million songs, podcasts and more than 100 radio streams.
According to a survey commissioned by RTL+ and conducted by market research company Forsa, younger users in particular seek an attractively priced and varied offer. 76% of respondents aged between 14 and 49 consider a reduced rate combination offer to be attractive or very attractive. According to the survey, music is the most-used content category after video.
Next up: audiobooks and premium digital magazines. They are on track to build a fantastic cross-media bundle.
Their distribution strategy: the best of two worlds
RTL+ aims at ubiquitous distribution across CTV and Pay TV, with standalone and bundled access.
One partnership is said to be behind their incredible growth in 2022: Deutsche Telekom. DT bundles RTL+ Premium with Magenta TV, DT’s Pay TV offering.
Advertising Masters already
Another major advantage RTL+ has is its legacy advertising business (as RTL Germany is a commercial broadcaster).
In 2022, net ad revenues in TV/streaming are expected to decrease by 2.3% to around €5.36 billion. TV advertising is set to shrink by 6% to around €4.08 billion while streaming will see continued growth in sales of 12% to around €1.28 billion.
As TV advertising was flattening, RTL transitioned early to streaming. A bet that proved smart as TV advertising revenue across the RTL Group was down 4.4% year-on-year in 2022.
Advertising was in their DNA but SVOD wasn't. This makes it an even more spectacular success story and one that shows European companies can pave the way in streaming too.
📺 Streamer snapshot:
“We all rise with more eyes". This motto from Alice Mascia, CEO of DAZN in the DACH region, has been on my mind since International Women’s Day on March 8th.
I used to see myself as an inactive executive when it comes to advancing D&I in the tech and media industries. Unlike Dieuwke van Buren who started Equals, a community offering the tools to accelerate an inclusive and gender balanced workplace.
Today, I show up on LinkedIn every day. I thrive to bring value to my peers, to share about my journey as a solopreneur and hopefully to inspire others to get out there too.
I feel seen but I work really hard for it. There are days where I want to crawl into a hole but I now feel a responsibility to get out there. I guess it’s my small contribution to the space.
Back to business. There are many ways one can contribute to give women the place they deserve and DAZN just did that. They launched in Germany “DAZN Rise”, a FAST Channel dedicated to Women's sports.
Using the FAST vehicle to progress the visibility and access that women's sports deserve is simply awesome.
It also sums up the beauty of FAST. You can quickly test and build a portfolio of channels with sub-brands catering to different thematics.
Go check it out:
🎬 Content recommendation:
A funny thing happened last Sunday. I reached out to a friend to go to the movies. I took care of everything. Here we are, sipping a drink (yes you can bring proper beverages in here) and when the movie starts, it dawns on me: maybe this movie produced by a French company is not in French but in Arabic with Dutch subtitles. Bingo! Let’s just say that my Dutch is still basic but we were there so…
Two things leaving the theater:
I’m not half bad in reading Dutch.
This film was so beautiful and moving.
A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship turned upside down by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice. Love stories at their best, with so much modesty and respect.
Highly recommend it but in the right language 👉 The Blue Caftan
That’s it folks. Enjoy your weekend and see you next Friday for another edition of Streaming Made Easy!
By night, I write Streaming Made Easy and post each working day on Linkedin.
By day, I run The Local Act, a streaming video consultancy.
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