PPV or pay-per-view is a term that all of us have heard of at least or even taken advantage of this streaming method. This is not something new, and the popularity of this method has been up and down over the years. With so many streaming services and TV subscriptions available it is becoming even more challenging for PPV to compete, especially for NFL or MLB broadcast. So, what is the future of pay-per-view?
What is pay-per-view streaming?
The name is pretty much self-explanatory. This type of streaming is not a subscription-based model where you have access to all the content all the time, but you actually pay for each view, and most of the time, this is used for limited-time content or sports events. The first pay-per-view event was a boxing match that happened back in 1948 between Joe Louis and Jersey Joe. After that, many cable TV channels started offering many sports events on a PPV method. Of course, when the internet became popular, PPV events moved there.
Right now, pay-per-view events can be watched on almost any TV channel and many streaming services and sites. If you are using a smart TV like Fire TV, it is very easy to watch different PPV events and not miss any sports game you would like to catch. It is very easy to do so, and there is not a lot you should do before enabling PPV events on FireStick. There are different sites you can find on your FireStick, and all of them will give you access to different events.
How does PPV work?
Pay-per-view is very popular, as we mentioned, in the sport and entertainment industries for things like watching games, matches, concerts, and others. It works basically like buying a ticket for a live event, but now you are buying a ticket to participate virtually. But this would mean that you can watch this even only live, and you can’t watch it in an on-demand manner after that.
So, if there is, for example, a football game that is streamed only on a pay-per-view model, you will be able to pay a certain amount of money to watch it, but you can do it only live. Those kinds of events are rarely recorded and then put available as on-demand videos, making the pay-per-view service a bit much more limited.
This is also the main difference between pay-per-view and on-demand or streaming. With pay-per-view, you will have to pay once (sometimes not a tiny amount of money) for something you will be able to watch only once in a particular moment. On-demand videos are also not that cheap, but at least you can watch them whenever you want to, and they are available to you either forever or at least a long period of time. When it comes to streaming, you can watch a lot of content whenever you want, and streaming services rarely take any content down.
What is the future of pay-per-view streaming?
We don’t need to go to the cinema anymore to watch new movies or wait for them to be on TV when we need to watch them at a specific time again. In the past, if you missed the film in the theaters or were not home when your favorite show was broadcasted, you won’t even have the possibility to watch it. This is why streaming extremely facilitated our lives. Especially in the pandemic times when going was very limited, and the only option of watching some content was online.
Of course, most people turned to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or others. This is because you have access to unlimited content whenever you want to and you shouldn’t, in most cases, pay anything additionally. But what if there is an event that is just one-time like a football match or a concert? Then you will have to take advantage of a service like a pay-per-view.
Before the pandemic, many fans could go directly to a place to watch a sports event or a concert in person. But COVID made it so much harder, so pay-per-view events became even more popular during the lockdowns and the times after that. But would that still remain the case now in one post-pandemic world? The answer is — most probably yes. Many people discovered how easy it is to find an event to watch that you maybe didn’t even know was happening. So, they will probably continue using this method to watch different sports, enthronement, or other times of events in a pay-per-view streaming method.
Wrapping up
Pay-per-view is a very useful method to watch events you otherwise won’t be able to watch in person. Of course, it will not replace streaming, but it is an entirely different method in general. Many people rediscovered it during the pandemic, but they seem to stick to it even afterward. So, the future of pay-per-view is definitely very bright.
