JAG
5/29/2015
SMGT 6132
Media and Technology
As technology continues to advance companies in all industries must react to maintain whatever competitive advantages they may have. This is certainly true in sports media where the major content consists of airing live competitions. A new technology known as Periscope is presenting an alternative that could threaten limitless amounts of media revenue.
As described by John Ourand in his May 25th Sports Business Journal article title “Why the Big Media Companies have Periscope on their Radar”, Periscope and Meerkat are services that allow people to share homemade videos as they are being filmed. The case documented in the article involved a Periscope feed of live television sets airing the pay-per-view title fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
The fear is that as streaming services become more readily available an increasing number of users will move away from traditional TV media. Although the article states that no evidence exists which would suggest that the pay-per-view revenue was down, the relative ease of this technology would leave anyone to believe that its popularity will only increase, and by extension, traditional TV media will be negatively affected. Frighteningly enough, the article compares this new technology with Napster over a decade ago.
As recent history has shown, traditional TV media is already being replaced by major streaming outlets such as Netflix and Amazon. One of the main reasons traditional TV still holds market share is the fact that live sports are have contract deals with the likes of CBS, NBC, Fox ESPN, etc. It is my belief that once live sports are more readily available via streaming services Traditional TV media will see a greater drop-off in subscription revenue.