Spectators look into the wallet – Newspaper Kommersant No. 10 (7455) of 01/20/2023

The Russian market of video services in 2022 grew within 5% in terms of revenue, according to TelecomDaily, but in 2023 the dynamics may be unstable. More than 25% of viewers surveyed by B1 analysts plan to stop paying for services. Against the backdrop of sanctions, their libraries have decreased by an average of 10%, and alternative content purchased instead of Hollywood films and series does not always attract customers. Russian streaming companies themselves hope to avoid an outflow of audience through the use of their own content.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the results of a survey conducted by the audit company B1, conducted in December 2022, in which about 700 users of legal online cinemas from large cities of Russia participated. More than 25% of surveyed users plan to reduce their costs in the near future by canceling their subscription to video services.

Of those who are going to cancel their subscription, 44% cite the high price as the main reason, 32% want to cancel after watching a specific series, 11% received a subscription as a gift and did not plan to buy it, another 10% are not satisfied with the selection of content, 3% reported low quality of service.

In 2023, the growth of the audience of online cinemas may be unsustainable due to problems with the replacement of Hollywood content, B1 partner Anton Ustimenko predicts: “Foreign online services annually invest in projects dozens of times more than the revenue of the entire Russian video streaming market.” After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures reported that work in the Russian Federation was stopped, and Netflix and other services left the Russian market.

At the same time, online cinemas interviewed by Kommersant claim that they did not observe an outflow of users in 2022. “Over the past year, we have seen a positive trend both in terms of subscriber base and viewing. Thus, the number of views per subscriber increased by 23% compared to 2021,” the press service of Amediateka said. Premier is also talking about the growth in the number of subscribers, in the first half of the year it reached 2.4 million people. Premier CEO Sofya Mitrofanova believes that the reason for the influx of audience is that the online cinema produces its own films and series.

Wink (Rostelecom) video service development director Anton Volodkin speaks of a “serious increase in the number of users” in 2022: “The overflow of customers from departed online cinemas and the policy of aggregating content from different services in one subscription affected.” In Kinopoisk, they declined to comment, in ivi, Okko and Start they did not answer “Kommersant”.

In 2021, according to TelecomDaily, the total revenue of legal video services in Russia amounted to 54.9 billion rubles, which is 41% more than the result of 2020. Market growth in 2022 remained, but was within 5%, Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily, believes: “According to our data, there is a decrease in the number of existing users of legal video services, but still the percentage of people who can unsubscribe is less than 25%.”

The decrease in the volume of content of Western majors for individual services was up to 70%, on average, the reduction of libraries in the market can be estimated at up to 10%, says Mr. Kuskov: “The purchased South American, Chinese and Indian content does not attract as many users as Hollywood – sometimes discovers that he has nothing to watch. This encourages people who have two or three active subscriptions to keep only one.”

According to Wink, the average user pays for two subscriptions, Anton Volodkin clarifies: “One of them is the main one, and the second one changes depending on the content that the user is interested in.” In this sense, the rotation of subscriptions was before, he emphasizes: “We do not think that the trend will drastically increase in 2023, as online services have prepared a solid set of new original content, which should potentially retain users.”

Valeria Lebedeva