Poll Shows Netflix Remains The King Of Content

Digital is emerging as the frontrunner among an assortment of media consumption, and consequently, traditional media is at risk of becoming a dying breed.

Online or digital content is made available to customers in two formats, namely progressive downloading or streaming. In the former, the entire content has to be downloaded before it can be used, while the latter allows using the content even before the entire file is downloaded.

Technically, streaming content is an audio or video file made available through the internet, which is partially downloaded and played even as the rest of the file is being downloaded.

Streaming content offers the convenience of watching at our own time and on any device of our choice. Over and above all these, it is relatively inexpensive.

Given the promise held out by streaming, many companies have forayed into it, resulting in increasing rivalry in the space. Some of the streaming services include Netflix, Inc. NFLX, Hulu, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN Instant Video, PlayStation Vue, Sling Orange, Crackle, Twitch, Vevo, CBS Corporation CBS's All Access, and Time Warner Inc TWX's HBO GO and HBO NOW.

With the fickle nature of the internet audience, it is very difficult to keep customers from shifting allegiance. Therefore, companies are investing time and money in creating or outsourcing original content.

Netflix, with its deep pockets is planning to spend $6 billion on original content this year, Statista said citing JPMorgan. Amazon is also pursuing original content at a feverish pitch, with the online behemoth planning to invest an estimated $4.5 billion in 2017.

Companies now give options to customers to access streaming content with commercials, at a higher price, or commercial-free at a lower cost.

Even as the race heats up, Netflix has emerged as the undisputed king in streaming original content, the new pet theme of streaming companies and customers alike, according to Statisa, quoting research by Parrot Analytics. This is despite Amazon making a big push into the original content arena since it first premiered its original shows in 2013.

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Now Amazon boasts of a fairly rich original content library, including hit shows such as "The Man in the High Castle," "The Grand Tour" and "Transparent."

Parrot Analytics, which measured audience demand as a function of audience desire, engagement and consumption of content, weighted by importance, showed that nine out of the top 10 original streaming TV shows between Aug. 27 and Sept. 2 belonged to Netflix.

"Ozark" was the most sought-after original TV show during the period, with 14.75 million viewers.

Here's Parrot Analytics' list of the most popular original TV series (Aug. 27–Sept. 2):

• "Ozark" (Netflix): Crime drama thriller dealing with a financial planner engaged in a money laundering scheme on behalf of a Mexican drug cartel.
• "Stranger Things" (Netflix): A sci-fi thriller focusing on supernatural events that happen around a fictional town.
• "Narcos" (Netflix): A crime series revolving around a drug kingpin.
• Marvel's "The Defenders" (Netflix): Centered on Marvel comic characters who form a superhero team.
• "Disjointed" (Netflix): A comedy series that delves on legalized marijuana use.
• "The Handmaid's Tale" (Hulu): A series revolves around a fictitious nation called Gilead where fertile women called handmaids were picked to engender kids for their masters in an era where infertility posed a grave threat to proliferation.
• "Orange Is The New Black" (Netflix): Comedy series about experience in a women's prison.
• "13 Reasons Why" (Netflix): A drama-mystery around the death of two high school students.
• "Daredevil" (Netflix): Marvel adaptation of Attorney-by-Day, Vigilante-by-Night Matt Murdock.
• "Castlevania" (Netflix): Canadian-American adult animated web series based on the 1989 video game "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse" by Konami.

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Image Credit: By Lowtrucks - Own work, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons