• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, January 6, 2020

It seems that sports streaming is going from success to success as satellite television and set-top-box streaming companies carve up rights to events that force fans of a sport -- particularly football -- to pay for more than one service.

Will the same hold true for general entertainment? The analysts are not entirely sure. Deloitte research in America, where competition is already higher than here, suggests nearly half the tv market is fed up with prime content being spread across too many platforms, all putting their hand out for a monthly subscription.

In the UK, we have already really seen this. People are probably annoyed at having to pay for Sky Sports and BT Sports to watch football, but with entertainment, people are likely already subscribing to Sky. Around half of the market also pays for a streaming service, but as this is mostly a choice between Netflix and Amazon Prime, we have yet to see blood on the proverbial floor.

Most Amazon viewers will simply get their video content with the membership they bought in order to get deliveries included in the price of goods. There has not been a time when they have had to compare the cost of Netflix and Amazon. You pay for one and the video just happens to come with the other.

You could argue that Britbox is currently in the mix, but with limited apps available to get it on to smart screens, it is not really a contender right now.

Disney+ will be different, though, and The Guardian yesterday quoted analysis that suggests, for the first time, Netflix's growth could be checked. In fact, rather than hitting the 200m target some have been talking about this year, its current 160m global subscribers could sink by 10%.

It's a bold statement, but Disney+ added 10m subscribers on its first day of being available in the US, largely thanks to the platform releasing The Mandalorian, featuring the adorable Baby Yoda. 

March 31st will mark a huge turning point for the UK as Disney+ takes on Netflix head to head, forcing UK customers to consider churning to Star Wars and Marvel entertainment or pay for both. 

Nobody knows how the market will react, but it will be interesting to see whether British consumers are already, paying all they are willing to -- or if there is enough in the digital wallet to pay for Disney+ once the latest series of The Crown has been viewed on Netflix.