Oh, you also don’t? It appears that today is National Streaming Day. And it’s not just any National Streaming Day—Roku introduced the celebration ten years ago this year. Pour some bubbly, or at the very least, have a few brewskis in Roku City.
Over the last ten years, more has changed than just the breathtaking skyline in the screensaver. Ten years ago, Netflix had just launched Season 2 of “House of Cards” and had roughly 270 million paid customers worldwide. Today, the platform is home to the penthouse of the biggest tower in the streaming industry. Do you believe that anything has changed in Kevin Spacey’s life since then?
On May 20, 2014, Netflix declared that it would no longer run advertisements and would only stream content—not live sports. Since then, the DVDs have been recycled, the advertisements have arrived, and some excellent live sports events are planned.
Here is the full list of all the major SVOD services that were available in May 2014, excluding Netflix: 1) Hulu, which was still partially owned by Fox and featured NBC programming; 2) Amazon Instant Video, formerly known as Amazon Prime Video; 3) HBO Go (since HBO Now hadn’t been released yet, let alone HBO Max or Max); and so on. The others would premiere years later; CBS All Access and then Paramount+ would debut approximately five months later.
How was Roku involved in all of this? It was merely a hardware manufacturer ten years ago, although the biggest one and the pioneer of Netflix TV streaming. Years before the Roku Channel was even a concept, Roku had already conquered its niche. In 2024, the Roku Channel will exclusively broadcast Major League Baseball games on Sundays, an unprecedented privilege in 2014. Charlie Collier is the current CEO of Roku Media; in May 2014, he was still enjoying the spotlight following the AMC “Breaking Bad” conclusion. Here, we’re skipping over his whole stint at Fox.
Roku would have to change course soon. Smart TVs would become widely available the next year, upending the disruptor. “Binge-watch” was also the Collins English Dictionary’s 2015 Word of the Year. Are you beginning to realise how much has changed in time for the anniversary of National Streaming Day on April 13 (tin is okay as well)?
Roku has developed along with the business and changed with it. Roku devices streamed over 3.2 billion hours of content in 2014. It increased to 106 billion in 2023, a 35-fold increase. Still at the top, albeit in a few somewhat different categories, is Roku. After merging with those Smart TVs, it became the most popular TV operating system in Mexico and the United States, accounting for about 40% of all TV sales in those nations. There, Roku leads the streaming market by a wide margin.
Drowzing in the stream, we are. Ninety-five percent of American households have at least one streaming subscription, according to a Kantar report from January. That’s essentially full market saturation, so forget about maturing. Additionally, it was discovered that a majority of Americans currently utilise FAST platforms, such as Roku Channel. It wasn’t until December 1, 2018, that the name “FAST,” which stands for Free Ad-supported Streaming Television, was even created.
