The future of streaming Adapted from The Independent, by Doug Bolton, 14 June 2015
1. When was the last time you bought a CD? Or a DVD?
If you are under 30 years old, it was probably a long
time ago. For a new generation of music listeners, TV
and film viewers, streaming services such as Spotify
and Netflix have replaced trips to the music shop or
even downloads from iTunes. Streaming is becoming
popular just like satellite TV did 20 years ago. And
investors are paying attention.
2. According to reports, Spotify has hired the
investment company Goldman Sachs to raise $500m
(£330m) in fresh funding. They value the business at
$8bn. According to the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos,
Amazon invested $1.3bn in 2014 in its streaming
service Prime Instant Video.
3. Streamers are ready to fight for our attention —
and our cash. "The main reason why the money
is going to streaming is because consumers want
it," says Ian Maude, who studies online media for
Enders Analysis. "The growth rate for Spotify now is
just unbelievable. They announced 12.5 million paid
subscribers at the end of November and now they’ve
got 15 million."
4. Mr Maude says that the situation is similar to other
streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Instant
Video and NowTV. "In the UK, the number of
households that own a TV dropped from 98 per
cent to 96 per cent in just the last year," says Maria
Ingold, who runs the video-on-demand consultancy
Mireality. "Tablet ownership is up from 29 per cent to
46 per cent. For kids especially, their TV experience
is on a tablet."
5. Technology is the reason for the rise of streaming.
More portable devices and faster internet mean that
it is a viable option. Ms Ingold was the chief
technology officer of the video-on-demand business
FilmFlex and points out: "We started 18 years ago
doing video on demand. But when cheaper and faster
broadband arrived, a lot of things have changed."
6. For the artists whose "content" supports streaming
services, the transition to this new distribution model
has been difficult in some cases .
7. In film and television, streaming has brought new
income. But for the music industry, the rise
of platforms such as Spotify, Rdio and Deezer
has resulted in even smaller earnings for artists.
Musicians complained of the $0.99 per track price
on iTunes, but that now seems a lot compared to the
average $0.007 per stream royalty which Spotify pay
to artists.
8. But for the music streaming services, it is also
difficult to make much money. Spotify, which is the
sector leader, made a loss of e57.8m (£43.5m) last
year. Oleg Fomenko, who ran the music streaming
application Bloom.fm, believes this is a trivial detail
because Spotify is focusing on growth rather than
profit. "The last man standing will make money," he
says. "Right now it’s just a rush for that scale."
9. Bloom.fm was one of the many Spotify competitors
which lost the race for scale. It went out of
business after its Russian investor decided to stop
funding it last year. "Blinkbox and Sony’s Music
Unlimited closing down shows that unless you have
deep pockets, it is extremely difficult," says Mr
Maude. "Investors are ready to give up very quickly
if something isn’t working."
10. Despite questions over profitability and industry
taxes, the sector shows no signs of slowing. Investors
seem very ready to invest money in streaming and the
appetite among consumers has not been satisfied yet.

1)Find the word/phrase ...
Find a word or phrase in the text which means ...
1. noticing (phrase, P1)
2. capable of working successfully, feasible (adjective, P5)
3. a change from one thing to another (noun, P6)
4. one of several songs or pieces of music on a CD or other musical recording (noun, P7)
5. unimportant (adjective, P8)
6. a lot of financial resources (phrase, P9)
7. demand (noun, P10)

2)Collocations
Match the verbs on the left to the words on the right to form phrases from the text.
1. raise a. a business
2. value b. a loss
3. bring c. funding
4. go d. growth
5. make e. new income
6. focus on f. out of business

3)Checking understanding
What do you remember? Put T (True) or F (False) next to each of the statements below.
1. Streaming has become more popular than buying CDs.
2. Business people are investing in streaming because they think people will want it in the future.
3. Kids prefer to watch TV on a television.
4. Streaming has become popular because of technological developments.
5. Musicians earn a lot of money with streaming.
6. Streaming services are very profitable at the moment.
7. Streaming services need a lot of funding to be successful.
8. The streaming business has not slowed down yet.

tatiana342    3   03.03.2022 20:53    0