FLEXIBLE, VERSATILE, RESILIENT
Reaching the market is a problem that HBO Max is also facing, which is still not available on Roku or Amazon Fire TV. The United States sat atop the list of regions for both targets and acquisitions again in H1 2020, but its share of overall deals has been trending downwards since 2018 when the country saw 39% of all deals as a target region. In H1 2020, 29% of global buy-side deals were led by American companies, with the United States also securing 29% of all deals as a target region. All deals, including either an American buyer or seller, were down by almost 50%, but the caution was not limited to Media M&A. The North American VC market was also hit by a 10% decline in deal values, according to Crunchbase, and an even more marked decline in the volume of early and late stage funding rounds completed. The economic effects from COVID-19 hit sharply in Q2 when the US VC market also saw some drop- off across sectors.
In the United States, Amazon and Roku are dominating the over-the-top (OTT) streaming device market but that has not dissuaded broadcasters from attempting to compete by leveraging their own content and branding. As paid television viewing hours have declined, so has the value of television advertising. For broadcasters, this has made the development of a bespoke OTT service more of an appealing prospect. However, the battle also demonstrates the difficulty of operating an ad-dependent service in such an environment. In the US, NBCUniversal is looking to follow HBO in debuting its own streaming service, Peacock, abounding with reams of popular content including shows such as The Office. But success will rely on reaching as many eyeballs as possible in order to generate ad- revenue, and NBCUniversal has yet to secure deals with major providers across the US market.
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