Study: Turning content dollars into audience | Page 24

Having shown the importance of exclusive content for audience growth and consumers’ willingness

to pay, as well as the high costs associated with its creation, it is clear that exclusive content must

be marketed efficiently in order to establish long-term market leadership.

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3.3 Sustaining the competitive advantage of content exclusivity

Certain big players in the streaming and TV

market, such as Amazon or Joyn, therefore

follow a hybrid model with free and premium

content. They manage to attract customers

with free content and generate customer

lock-in via a paywall model, which means that

customers are charged a fee to access

additional premium content.

These players not only produce exclusive

content, but also secure rights to broadcast

externally produced content that are exclusive

to one network. While creating a huge

marketing advantage, this option might

be more cost-efficient than producing own

content. For instance, Sky and HBO had an

output deal in place, providing Sky with

complete exclusivity on all HBO content for

the DACH region. Even if the content was

produced by HBO, it could not be seen

anywhere else except for Sky Atlantic.

Moreover, successful players focus on both

exclusive content and formats which satisfy

the specific demanding taste of their

customers. Content recognized for successful

differentiation is often live sports-related such

as German Bundesliga or American Super

Bowl. Although first streaming providers (e.g.

Amazon Prime) are starting to tap into this

segment, in particular, linear TV providers

(both public and private) have successfully

differentiated themselves from on-demand

video services in the past through exclusive

licenses to attract customers with popular

sports events. Thus, linear TV channels

manage to still be the favorite consumption

medium for daily news, selected movies, and

soccer, which is also their major point of

differentiation.