The rise of streaming: Australia mirrors global shift in Olympic viewing habits
- Anmol Shantha Ram
- Nov 25, 2024
- 2 min read
Australia's 2024 Paris Olympics viewing trends mirror a global shift to streaming services. This change in how audiences consume major live sporting events signals a shift that telcos and content providers must factor into their strategies.
Australia’s Olympic viewing is a reflection of global trends
Australia's Olympic viewing habits mirror broader international trends. Channel Nine's streaming platform, 9Now, delivered a 20% additional reach to live broadcast TV, accumulating over 263 million minutes viewed in the opening days.
Stan Sport, another Australian streaming platform, achieved its highest viewing day during the Paris games, outperforming its previous highest daily minutes streamed record by 24%. And Stan Sport is streaming all events in 4K, allowing for high-quality viewing experiences.
This increase in streaming aligns with global patterns. In the US, NBCUniversal's digital platforms surpassed the entire Tokyo Olympics in just three days. In the UK, Discovery+ saw a 500% increase in streaming minutes compared to Tokyo 2020. Eurosport channels also experienced significant audience growth, with Eurosport 1 up 151% and Eurosport 2 up 400% compared to the previous Olympics.
Multi-platform approach: A global strategy
Combining traditional broadcast with streaming options echoes strategies used worldwide. On the first day of the Olympics, Channel Nine’s Australian metro broadcast reached 5.4 million people, regional Australia 2.4 million, and 9Now 2.3 million. This multi-platform strategy is similar to NBCUniversal's approach in the US and Warner Bros. Discovery's in Europe, where streaming accounts for 80% of the total Olympic audience among European subscribers.
Demographic shift: A widespread phenomenon
Australia's streaming platforms effectively attract younger audiences, with 9Now achieving an 86% share of viewers aged 16-39. This trend is consistent with global observations, where streaming services have increasingly become the preferred medium for younger demographics across various markets.
Challenges and opportunities: A fibre experience
Australian viewers face common concerns in the streaming era, such as buffering, lag, and poor video quality.
Latency: One of the most significant technical issues is latency, where the live stream lags behind the real-time broadcast. This can spoil the experience, especially when social media or other notifications reveal key moments before they are seen on the stream.
Streaming quality: Poor video quality, buffering, and interruptions are major deterrents. Viewers expect high-definition streams without interruptions, and any failure to deliver this can lead to abandonment.
These issues highlight the global need for robust, high-speed broadband infrastructure, with fibre broadband emerging as a key solution that mitigates all of these problems.
Conclusion: A global shift, reflected in Australia
The Paris Olympics has shown that Australia's viewing habits are part of a broader, global shift towards streaming. As the world moves towards more flexible, on-demand viewing experiences, telcos and content providers worldwide need to adapt to these changing viewer preferences and provide reliable, high-quality streaming experiences that will be well-positioned to succeed in this new era of global content consumption.
The future of viewing is streaming. And it's a global phenomenon that Australia is very much a part of.
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