The sheer number of streaming services has reached the saturation point. I know that I have a limit and will sometimes sign up for a channel for one month, watch the single show I wanted and then cancel. Some streaming services have seen a drop in membership.
I think Roku could negotiate with willing services to create an app that would allow users to customize the shows they want from multiple streamers and still provide good financial incentive for the services. The channels that choose to hold out may find the 'BYOC' service is so appealing that they may be encourage to join to.
Here's how I see it working: Roku hosts the app and enters into agreements with services that are interested. The services would offer a 'lite' product only for BYOC. The BYOC app would allow people to pick up to a certain amount of streaming services to combine - let's say 5. Each of the lite versions of the streaming services would allow the BYOC user to select up to say 3 shows. Once a BYOC user has selected the 3 show slots (don't have to select all at once) they cannot pick another for 30 days to reduce churn
The BYOC channel can probably charge a premium price of say $9.99 per month vs 6.99 and maybe have an ad/no ad option. People can upgrade any channel to the full version which would free up a BYOC channel slot. Roku could take a fee for managing this BYOC service and the balance would be divided among the streaming services in a persons BYOC channel.
Why this is good. People have more control and won't have to totally give up a streamer if all they want is one show or have a limit to amount of channels they can handle or afford. There is always a chance to upgrade AND the streamers may find that while they may lose to full memberships to the lite account thy can end up with many times more memberships in total through the sharing module.
I guess you could also do a Disney parks thing and blackout certain shows from the lite accounts, or allow people to see those premium shows for a premium fee. "This is a premium show not included in the BYOC channel. Add it to your BYOC for 30 days for a one time premium show charge of $2?
Otherwise I expect a lot of slashing, merging and failing of weak streaming services.
