By: Oluwakemi Sofoluwe and Ahmed Ademoye
Streaming Television is the digital distribution of television content, such as television shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet.
Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over the air aerial systems, cable television and or satellite television systems.
Up until the 1900s, it was not considered possible that a television program could be squeezed into the limited telecommunication bandwidth of a copper telephone cable to provide a streaming service of acceptable quality, as the required bandwidth of a digital television.
Signal was around 200Mbit/s, which was 2000 times greater than the bandwidth of a speech signal over a copper telephone wire. Streaming services were only made possible as a result of two major technological development: MPEG {Motion compensated DCT} Video compression and asymmetric digital subscriber line {ADSL} data transmission. The mid 2000s marked the beginning of television programmes becoming available via the internet.
The video sharing site YouTube was launched in early 2005, allowing users to share illegally posted television programmes. YouTube confounder Jawed Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson’s role in the 2004 super Bowl Incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, and later from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site. Apple’s iTunes service also began offering select television programs and series in 2005, available for download after direct payment.
A few years later, television networks and other Independent services began creating sites where shows and programs could be streamed online.
Amazon video began in the US as Amazon Unbox in 2006, but didn’t launch worldwide until 2016. Netflix, a website originally created for DVD rentals and sales, began providing streaming content in 2007. In 2008, Hulu owned by NBC and Fox, was launched, followed by tv.com in 2009, owned by CBS.
The first generation Apple television was released in 2007 and in 2008, the first generation Roku streaming device was announced.
Digital media players also began to become available to the public during this time. These digital media players have continued to be updated and new generations released.
Smart televisions took over the television market after 2010 and continued to partner with new providers to bring streaming video to even more users.
As of 2015, smart televisions are the only type of middle to high-end television being produced.
Amazon’s access to television programming has evolved from computer and television access to include mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers.
Corresponding apps for mobile devices started to become available via app stores in 2008, but they grew in popularity in the 2010s with the rapid deployment of LTEcellular network.
These mobile apps allow users to view provided streaming media on mobile devices which support them.
In 2008, the International Academy of Web Television, headquartered in Los Angeles, formed in order to organize and support Tv actors, authors, executives, and providers in web series and streaming television. The organization also administers the selection of winners for the steamy Awards.
In 2009, the Los Angeles Web Series Festival was founded. Several other festivals and awards shows have been dedicated solely to web content, including the Indie Series Awards and the Vancouver Web Series Festival.
In 2013, in response to the shifting of the soap opera “All my children” from broadcast to streaming television a new category for “fantastic web-only series” in the Daytime. Emmy Awards was created. Later that year, Netflix made history by earning the first prime time Emmy Award nominations for a streaming television series, for Arrested Development, Hemlock Grove, and House of Cards, at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Hulu earned the first Emmy win for outstanding Drama Series, for The Handmaid’s Tale at the 69thPrimetime Emmy Awards.
Traditional cable and satellite television providers began to offer services such as sling television, owned by Dish Network, which was unveiled in January 2015. DirecTV, another satellite television provider launched their own streaming service, DirecTV Now, in 2016.
Sky launched a similar streaming service in the UK called Now TV.Nigeria’s Nollywood is not left behind as it rides digital adoption to get world’s attention. Omo Ghetto, directed and produced by Mrs. Funke Akindele Bello, stretched the limits in technology adoption and reaped a windfall of N640 million, the highest revenue by any Nollywood movie ever.
In 2013, streaming video website Netflix earned the first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for original streaming television at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards. Three of its web series, House of Cards, Arrested Development, and Hemlock Grove, earned nominations that year.
On July 13, 2015, cable company comcast announced an HBO plus broadcast TV package at a price discounted from basic broadband plus basic cable. In 2017, you tube launched You Tube TV, a streaming service that allows users to watch live TV programs from popular cable or network channels and record shows to stream anywhere, anytime.
As of 2017, 28% of US adults cite streaming services as their main means for watching television and 61% of those ages 18 to 29 cite it as their main method.
As of 2018, Netflix is the world’s largest streaming TV network and also the world’s largest internet and entertainment company with 117 million paid subscribers and by revenue and market cap.
Nigeria’s Nollywood is not left behind as it rides digital adoption to get world’s attention. Omo Ghetto, directed and produced by Mrs. Funke Akindele Bello, stretched the limits in technology adoption and reaped a windfall of N640 million, the highest revenue by any Nollywood movie ever.
That is just another indication of an industry stakeholders say has been thrust into the global limelight.
To its credit, it is not every day one finds a Nollywood movie made with a budget of N200 million and setting a Box Office record, much less one that takes a dead car and refurbished it to life, or one in which an actor plays two opposing characters in one movie to perfection.
King of Boys: Return of the King by Kemi Adetiba, ranked seventh on the global top TV shows on Netflix in 2021, behind Hollywood hit shows like Vincenzo, Squid Game, Bridgerton, Sex/Life, Cocomelon, and The Good Doctor.
Attracting such global attention would never have been possible without a streaming service the size of Netflix.Ramsey Noah’s Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, a sequel to the 1992 classic Living in Bondage, made with N10 million and went on to gross N168.7 million, is also reputed by some movie experts as the movie that raised the bar on movie making in Nigeria with superior storytelling, technical execution, and digital tools at play.
Breaking Free was the first major remake of a classic Nollywood movie and went on to be successful as it was able to perfectly link the old generation
of 2021 compared with 1033 recorded in the same period in 2020, making it the largest in Africa and the second highest producer in the world after Bollywood.
In the past few years, the Nollywood industry has not only caught the eyes of the world with quality movies, but investors have also taken notice and are taking positions in the market.
In 2019, the industry saw its largest retinue of foreign investors including Netflix, France’s Canal+, and China’s StarTimes.
Chijioke Uwaegbute, an industry expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), attributes the influx of investors to growth in movie revenue over the years.
Nollywood movie revenue from the Box Office rose by 36 percent between 2017 and 2018, from $17.3 million to $23.6 million.
Streaming adoption is perhaps the biggest thing that happened to the Nollywood movie industry in 2021 and is likely to define how movies are distributed going forward.
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