MARIA RUA AGUETE: “NETFLIX AND DISNEY ARE THE WINNERS DURING THE PANDEMIC”

It is well known that the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the media-entertainment landscape but some companies have registered a big growth while others are in a constant decline. María Rua Aguete, Executive Director at Omdia detailed which companies are the winners and which companies are the losers in the current context.

Another interesting topic analyzed by Rua Aguete is the impact of Covid-19 in the video industry. “In all the countries when the lockdown is happening there is a massive increase in the number of hours that people are spending at home watching TV,” she explained.

The Executive Director at Omdia also affirmed that in this period where families are at home, kids' content and family content are in high demand. “The people are also looking for news because they want to be updated on what is happening around the world and they want also comfort viewing,”  she said.

Rua Aguete has answered the question: Who are the winners in the video streaming place?.  The number one is Netflix, it has the best quarter ever with more than 15 million additions in the quarter. “It’s the highest they have ever experienced,” she asserted. Another one is Disney, which had 50 million subscribers on April 8th. “It was a very good quarter for Disney as well,” she indicated.

But the executive explained that the situation is not the same for all the video streaming platforms. As Live sports is not happening, all the sports streamings video services have been hit badly by the crisis. “Of course they try to create new content like The Zone produces more than 400 hours a week with content based on original productions, with interviews with football players at home, creating new original content thanks to the virtual production capabilities,” said Rua Aguete.

Another platform hit by the crisis is Quibi that has launched last month. "They were hoping to be in the market with people were on the move, they have all pieces of content from 7 to 10 minutes that people can consume when are on the tube or the train but of course, we are at home, the situation changed, so Quibit results are not as good as expected because the pandemic did not help Quibit, that it was a mobile-only service based on short content, that doesn’t work that well when you are in your sofa in front of your TV screen," explained the executive.

Finally, Rua Aguete has talked about advertising space and affirmed that it is declining. “But even taking into account that the decline all the companies reported, even Facebook and Google, manage to get some growth,” she concluded.

By Romina Rodríguez