Live streaming has been possible since the 1990s when tools like the RealPlayer were introduced. This industry has undergone a massive shift in recent years, touching more and more parts of our lives and transforming the entertainment landscape. In what other areas can we feel the impact this is having?
A Greater Range of Options to Choose from
For many people, a vast range of movies and TV shows provide the most noticeable aspect of streaming. The latest figures suggest that Netflix has over 4,000 movies and close to 2,000 series available. Amazon Prime has even more content than this but a lower percentage of original content. As these and other services mature, we can expect the choice to grow and live streaming to become more important. Over the last couple of years, Netflix has reportedly been assessing the live streaming of shows such as standup events, while Amazon has mainly been looking at live sports.
The availability of live-streamed casino games is another recent trend that has seen our options grow enormously. While online casinos have existed since the turn of the century, the switch to using human dealers live-streamed onto the player’s device is more recent. When playing games such as roulette, you’ll now find a variety of versions that include random multipliers, spread betting and other features, with the games usually taking place in a studio decorated as a casino.
Take a look at the current sports streams you can view and you’ll find the same sort of growing sense of variety. It’s now possible to watch live sports from all over the planet, from the NFL on Amazon Prime to the biggest basketball games in the NBA to European soccer and rugby from Australia. If you love unusual niche sports, this makes it easier to watch them, with the Cooper’s Hill cheese rolling race in the UK and the chess boxing crossover sport among the options in the last year.
There’s also a shift toward live streaming in the e-commerce world. This is a combination of shopping and live entertainment where a human presenter shows goods to the viewers who can buy them as they watch. It’s a trend that has already exploded in China, where it’s been reported by McKinsey Digital that about a third of local consumers had bought from a live stream by early 2020.
More Flexibility
You might have seen some confusion over the terms live streaming and on-demand content. The truth is they’re often used interchangeably but there is a difference. Strictly speaking, on-demand content is pre-recorded to be watched at a later date of the viewer’s choice. However, since many live streams can be accessed later, the difference between these two methods becomes blurrier.
What can’t be denied is that the advances in streaming technology have given us a flexible way of enjoying whatever type of entertainment we prefer. The days of waiting for something we want to see, or having to travel long distances to watch it, are becoming a thing of the past. The different categories we’ve looked at represent just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s becoming clear that this is going to play an ever-bigger role in our lives from now on.