Rethink TV, from Rethink Technology Research, has published its latest report, “Content Security Forecast – 2024-2029“. This report draws from extensive industry engagement and offers critical insights for MVPDs, vMVPDs and OTT platforms alike who want to get a hold on the rising costs of protecting their content. Equally, security and anti-piracy vendors that provide such offerings will benefit from benchmark figures to assess the competitive landscape and prepare for a rocky road ahead.
The combined revenue for CAS, DRM and Watermarking in consumer entertainment is set to contract 20% over the next five years, from $1.63 billion to $1.3 billion, according to the latest forecast from Rethink TV.
A dwindling demand for CAS and stagnant pricing models for DRM drags this total Service Obtainable Market (SOM) to a low of $1.27 billion in 2028. However, this trend tapers upward by 2029 thanks to a surge in demand for Watermarking across live sports and some Premium Early Window (PEW) theatrical releases.
As video services fight to preserve their place in our attention economy, protecting premium content has never been more paramount. Video services shore up their business model by ensuring that only legitimate, approved users (those who can be monetized via subscriptions or ads) are accessing the content they invest in.
However, across three core Content Security technologies in the M&E landscape – Conditional Access Systems (CAS), Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Watermarking – only the latter looks set for a dramatic spike in spending.
With its reliance on set tops and pay TV contracts, a dwindling market for CAS is no surprise. However, demand for DRM – in terms of the volume of DRM-protected content being watched – is growing healthily every year.
How then has the market become so stagnant? In short, a booming OTT video ecosystem, accompanied by a flurry of new, agile pureplay OTT security vendors have rapidly commoditized the technology into a table stakes proposition. Prices have dipped dramatically, with many vendors throwing out volume-based pricing entirely, in favor of ‘all you can eat’ bundles.
With DRM unable to make up the shortfall in CAS spending, Watermarking is the only of the three core Content Security technologies that promises serious growth in the coming years, turning around an otherwise declining combined SOM.
CAS experiences a dramatic drop of 86%, falling to $96.9 million in 2029, while DRM remains relatively stable, with only a 10% decrease from $509.3 million to $458.5 million over the period. In contrast, Watermarking grows by 83% to $749 million in 2029, effectively countering declines in other segments and supporting overall SOM recovery by the end of the period.
It is worth noting that security vendors have many more revenue streams beyond these three core Content Security technologies. Content Monitoring, Fingerprinting, password encryption and law enforcement are all burgeoning revenue streams for vendors in the video delivery ecosystem. This report simply looks to evaluate the market for the three core technologies in content protection, with further expansion into other areas of video security likely when Rethink TV revisits the subject.
This is the latest forecast in the Rethink TV Archive, which now includes:
- Content Security Forecast 2024-2029
- Operator KPIs and Technology Choices
- Open Internet Contributions Protocols 2024-2029
- Content Recommendations Forecast 2024-2029
- CDN and Media over QUIC (QoC) Forecast 2024-2029
- FAST Market Forecast to 2029
- SVoD & Ad-Supported Market Forecast 2024-2029
- AVoD Forecast to 2029
- WiFi Market Forecast 2024-2029
- Operator Technology Choices and KPIs – Nov 2023 update
- The Unstoppable Rise of Social Media Video – Market Forecast 2023-2028
- Impact of Strikes and Inflation on Content Spending 2023-2028
- Set Top & Smart TV and Connected TV Device Operating System Forecast 2023-2028
- Media & Entertainment Codecs Market 2023-2030
- Sports Rights Forecast 2023-2033
- Investigating the Energy Use of Video Delivery and Consumption 2022-2027
- Video Delivery Market Forecast 2022-2028
- Open Internet Contribution Protocols Forecast 2022-2027
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