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Wochit: Sports to go fully online in 2017

December 7, 2016

Dror Ginzberg, Co-Founder & CEO of video creation platform Wochit, has outlined his industry predicitons for 2017, including a decline in pay-TV subscribers; a rise in online sports; and increased video presence on social media platforms.

1. Social media platforms will keep trying to perfect video

Ginzberg, firstly commented: “Last year saw Facebook Live’s release in April, Twitter’s extension of its video character limit, and Instagram’s launch of disappearing videos. Next year, such video-focused innovations will continue amongst the most popular social media platforms. With online video now accounting for over two-thirds of all internet traffic, this figure will only keep increasing into 2017 and all the main players will be seeking ways to interest and excite their users, while keeping a close eye on what their competitors are up to.”

2. Forget that TV subscription

Next, Ginzberg said, “Pay TV subscriptions are actually declining significantly with on-demand services, such as Netflix, which added a whopping 3.2 million international subscribers in the summer, picking these viewers up. A key trend we’ll see next year is that while traditional TV subscriptions fall, a raft of new on-demand providers will looking for a piece of this ever increasing pie. Huge players such as the British Film Institute and BBC plan to launch their own bespoke services in 2017, meaning this area is likely to see fierce competition throughout the year as new providers jockeying for position.”

3. Sports go fully online in 2017

For his final prediction, Ginzberg said: “2016 was the year that sports broadcasting took off, moving from the traditional television broadcast to an online setting. Deals were struck and the way we watched our favourite sports changed irrevocably with content moving to Twitter, PPTV and Youtube. Next year we only expect this to shift even further, with additional sports moving from television broadcast to online streaming services – this is especially the case for those sports which are housed in one country and watched all over the globe. The English Premier League has already seen this disruption, but we can expect 2017 to bring further fragmentation of sports broadcasting.”

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