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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1277879
With the uncertainty of a vaccine, production and post are proceeding cautiously and differently from last year to refill the pipeline. At the same time, the perfect storm – streaming content, people staying at home and acceptable economics – paved the way for a dramatic and what looks like a permanent change of the entire M&E ecosystem. The industry is gaining a greater understanding and appreciation of how the Internet can perform when delivering content at scale to an ever-increasing audience. Akamai and other CDNs have done an excellent job of managing the existing Internet capacity for fast, reliable delivery of games, video on demand and increasingly, sports and concert live streams. But the Internet capacity and speed are not universal. As Europeans sheltered in place, the EU asked Netflix, Amazon and YouTube to lower their streaming quality (reducing bandwidth requirements) which was done even though Netflix, which was focused on global growth, had been developing an advanced transmission net work for years. Netflix has deployed more than 4,700 dedicated servers around the globe and especially in areas such as Africa where internet speeds are terribly slow and expensive. These and CDN partner servers help relieve the Internet strain. In addition, they used their own video compression technology to reduce data consumption without diluting the viewing experience. With their focus on long-term growth they – as well as Amazon and Google – have been intent on removing the economic and content quality barriers in international markets. That portion is "relatively" easy…all it requires is financial commitment and technology. The second issue, which neither streamers nor consumers can agree upon, is whether to provide binge vs. weekly installments. True, TV and movie marathons have been around for decades with VHS, DVD and holiday/ weekend blocks. But Netflix, Hulu, BritBox and others transformed bingefests into special events to help create viewer growth and loyalty. Hulu, Disney+, Amazon and Apple TV+ have gone the traditional route with weekly episode releases to retain long- term interest (and subscriptions).