Singapore is no exception to the LS trend, with domestic and overseas streamed media rapidly growing in popularity and significant sums invested. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the Singapore LS sector, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic to capture its true state, and is the first major study on LS in Singapore. The study involved over 20 researchers who sampled 13 days of 24-hour streams from eight platforms using an automated script that periodically recorded the entire live content and every displayed chat message. The gathered data quantifies the number of active viewers, hours watched, hours streamed, viewership trends, and social ranking. With our large dataset and rigid methodology, we distinguish ourselves from previous similar works in this sector, giving confident measurements and conclusions.

The rapid advance in broadband internet technology has spawned online entertainment ecosystems where users watch, broadcast, and interact in real time. Known as the live streaming (LS) sector, it facilitates the real-time creation and distribution of media content, allowing anyone with an internet connection to become a live broadcaster. LS has rapidly grown in popularity globally, with the market expected to reach USD 247.8 billion by 2027. This technology allows a new breed of influencers to emerge through platforms such as Twitch, Bilibili, and YouTube. The array of content, such as video games, modeling, music, and social chatting, draws in millions of users daily.

Background and Significance of Live Streaming Services

The significance of conducting this study includes having a better understanding of the societal impact that is influenced by social media services, particularly live streaming services. Research studies could be used to forecast the popularity of services and predict if the community or public is affected by the social phenomenon. Governments could also leverage this analysis to fine-tune their policies and procedures on social media regulations. Furthermore, the information could also have broader applications for the business industry. The findings of this agriculture-related content can act as a cornerstone for the private sectors to target the loyal home-grown Singaporean audience for product or service launches, promotions, or even advertisements for companies overseas.

Nowadays, social media plays a predominant role in people’s daily lives. Live streaming services have massively developed and gained global attention in recent years. Despite the vast abundance of information on social media and live streaming services in Asia, empirical research in Asia, specifically in Singapore, remains underexplored. The present study aims to fill the existing literature gap by investigating the usage and perceptions of popular live streaming services in Singapore. The research outcome will contribute to the body of knowledge by providing insights into the national patterns of household and individual usage of popular live streaming services in Singapore. A preliminary result is presented, indicating that Netflix has the highest adoption rates at the national level.

Virtual Events

Live game streaming is a new, immersive online activity that allows users to watch live broadcasts of other players’ video game sessions. Currently, the most popular live game streaming platform worldwide is Twitch. Since its launch, Twitch has been the destination for live gaming streaming. Twitch allows video game streamers to strengthen their relationships with their viewers, establish stronger communities, and monetize these relationships. According to a study by De Grove and Towner, live game streaming takes place on Twitch, where gamers are using non-gaming content to attract and bond with donors. E-Sports streaming comprises 18.8% of total Twitch users. It provides the largest amount of unique content and a percentage of hours to viewers. Gaming talk shows, popular single-player video games, and new release games are also popular among Twitch content.

Zhou and Li defined virtual events as live experiences that are accessible to a global audience via online streaming. Participants in virtual events can join from their homes and experience everything from real-time communication to virtual shopping and entertainment. From the perspective of media theory, the research scope of virtual events in this study mainly includes live games, social live streaming, and the “virtual fans” phenomenon. Post-event analysis after critical events is also included, reflecting the social value of virtual events. The duration of virtual events is not limited to a fixed number of hours; serious virtual events with long-term schedules are analyzed in this study. The virtual event is exactly the same as the traditional economy, which is a contribution to gross domestic product (GDP). To date, there has been no such research about virtual events.

Definition and Scope

The phrase ‘live stream’ came into use with the expansion of the internet in the early 21st century. Live streaming involves simultaneously recording and broadcasting video and audio over computer networks. It offers viewers the option to watch events in real time as well as to watch and listen to recorded broadcasts of events later on. For example, an event that is currently live can be accessed by visiting and selecting a suitable broadcast channel. Live streaming is a relatively simple method for individuals, content creators, and social media networks to engage with their audience in real time, allowing viewers to see events as they happen and to interact with one another and the content creator through text chat. When the event has finished, the completed live stream will be available to watch again. Due to its user-friendly nature, live streaming content has become a popular and powerful technology in recent years.

Key Features and Benefits

Live streaming offers a real interactive experience. Streamers and audience can interact with each other, and as a result, the experience becomes more than just a traditional one-way lecturer-audience model. Some popular application examples of live streaming services are real-time video content creation, live social events, real-time interpersonal communication tools, real-time telesurgery or medical consultation, red carpet events real-time live broadcast, real-time social sports app broadcasting a real-time game or sports, etc. There are also live video plans one can consider or use in genres like TV, politics, gaming, electronic sports, education, real estate viewing, live show for virtual reality, word worship services, and remote online classes and learning.

Both the users and service providers stand to benefit from offering and using live streaming technology. With live streams, users can experience “being in two places at once” because they can be physically present in another location and attend the streamed event at the same time. It is a real-time event that users can enjoy. Alternatively, users can “experience the here and now together,” which means they can share the fun with their friends, families, larger community, or globally in real-time.

One of the key features in the next generation networks, such as 5G, is massive connectivity, which means the network can connect up to one million devices per square kilometer. As mentioned in Section 1, there are applications which service providers can offer to attract users to subscribe to the 5G networks. Live streaming, in particular, can help the 5G network capitalize on its high speed, low latency, and high throughput, which are the must-have features for live streaming applications that we are going to discuss.

Music Streaming Services

convenience sampling method was employed to gather the responses of 240 local music streaming service users during the study period (31 December 2014 to 25 January 2015). Posters around tertiary institutions, open calls on Facebook, and email blasts were used to recruit willing participants. The demographic profile of participants framed the audience section of Chapter 5. Observations from Taiwanese music industry stakeholders show that a shift in music distribution technology appears to be taking place as recorded music has moved from physical media (CDs, cassettes, etc.) to downloads (iTunes, other online platforms), and then to streaming (Spotify etc.), causing copyright protection controversies within the industry.

Overview of Apple Music

Apple Music is a music streaming service that originated in the US, which was brought to Singapore on 30 June 2015. It marks the first time that the company has openly adopted a Sony Music streaming model, offering tons of music for a subscription fee. There are two primary approaches that customers can pick – subscribe to Apple Music or purchase/store music purchased by iTunes. Last but not least, from a single service subscription and amount, all devices could access music files. These properties are compared to Apple Music’s closely related rivals. On 30 June 2015, at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple Music was launched. The service’s critical aspect is its capacity to replace iTunes Match, which allows stored iTunes music to be matched without affecting the actual music file. This network is a subscription-based model for streaming, which means that the user must receive a nominal fee to obtain the music.

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of five prominent live streaming services in Singapore: Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Deezer, and Joox. This section will summarize the main contenders in live streaming services, starting with Apple Music. The main advantages and disadvantages of using Apple Music are carefully examined. Apple Music covers the widest range of platforms but also comes with the highest service subscription cost. It has the second most extensive available library, but its Android application has received multiple complaints from users. The drawbacks of Apple Music are carefully discussed. Finally, a short comparison of all the services in question is presented.

Comparison of Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Other Platforms

This paper evaluates four popular music streaming services, Apple Music, Spotify, KKBox, and YouTube Music, based on their price, music catalog size, availability of play count, availability of music videos, and level of recommendation. Spotify is carrying the highest music catalog, KKBox is the only one carrying the play count, YouTube Music has the highest level of recommendation, and Apple Music is carrying the highest number of music videos. With plenty of interesting findings, we hope to facilitate users with more insightful information for better music streaming selection and commercial deals for better investment decisions.

The four services were compared through six perspectives, namely, price, availability of introductory trial, mobile compatibility, availability of multimedia content, adaptability of content, and recommendation algorithm. Through qualitative comparisons of these perspective results, we gained a clear understanding of the services as well as the features that could drive market demand. This in-house study also shows that there are variations in the price and compatibility of the popular voice-activated music streaming devices being Apple HomePod and Google Nest Audio that are to be used in conjunction with these music streaming services.

Family Plans and Subscription Options

Launching and integrating live streaming services through a smart TV, computers, smartphones, and other mobile electronic devices have sparked off a new form of creating, producing, delivering, and consuming television content. The provision of live content over the Internet has transformed the landscape of television, causing a paradigm shift and redefining the way people watch television. In the Southeast Asia region, Internet use is expected to continue to increase, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are also expected to maintain a strong growth rate. Rapid technological advancements are expected to increase demand for live streaming services. As a result, investments in live streaming services are set to increase rapidly. This development is also in line with Internet-based smartphones and smart TVs.

The focus on media technology and telecommunications changes the way people watch television. Traditional television services, which are accessed through a set-top box or by connecting to a digital aerial, are slowly being replaced. Television content is now consumed from satellite, cable, and IPTV services. Viewers usually register for a package that charges a monthly fee for a variety of channels. Due to technological advancements and the increased transfer speed with the ever-popular Internet broadband services, viewers now have the luxury to stream online.

Benefits of Family Plans

Overall, we focus on the exploitation of the OTT streaming service with the device limits by addressing the fairness and efficiency issues in the five different cases from various views. By applying the concepts from cooperative game theories to distribute the benefit to members, a monopoly provider can maintain a good reputation-value position in the competitive conditions. This paper is the first to introduce and study the OTT streaming service with utility and device limits in which all members can share the watching rights and responsibilities. We focus on both the fair membership-based family plans and the efficiency short-term family plans by applying the concepts of advantage and restriction values. The joint memberships can restrict themselves from watching the same restricted content at the same time. The proposed approach provides a useful policy instrument to different providers that are willing to apply the short-term joint membership strategy and assess the payment of ex-ante short memberships.

For popular live video streaming services from China, they recognize the fact that many users share accounts and watch the same content via a family plan. Since live streaming is also a primary service feature, live video streaming services with family plans are introduced. From analysis of the exploitation of this kind of service, users may enjoy the benefits of cost-saving and can watch their favorite shows at the same time via different devices. For the OTT streaming service with device limits, there is a transplantable and restrictive problem where the benefit of each user has to be assigned. This paper is the first to investigate the benefits of the OTT family plan where each user with a different value of watching and a different number of watched devices will be assigned. We focus on the general utility model of a family in which multiple account users can restrict the number of watched devices and apply concepts from cooperative game theory to design the fair and efficient family plans.

Content Library and User Experience

Additionally, to increase user friendliness, platforms with more experience in live streaming predominantly use advanced designs regarding interaction with subscribed or non-subscribed channels. Feature subscription is typically separate from the interaction step, where subscribing requires several additional clicks, similar to subscribing on YouTube. Only HUYA TV pursued a feature that integrates subscription and interaction into a single step.

In contrast to the content library, a bulky interface and non-user-friendly design of a platform will lead to user dissatisfaction and impact the user’s decision, such as subscribing, sponsoring, or consuming content. Intuitively, popular channels should at least provide more information about the content and the channel, along with their efforts in streaming service advertisement. Providing more detailed content will also allow subscribers to better decide whether to watch a video on demand or not. This section discusses each platform’s content library and provides figures to indicate each section.

Prior research compared user engagement activities in popular live streaming services catered to Chinese, English, and Portuguese-speaking populations. The platforms included in this study are Twitch, Mixer, Niconico, HuYa, DouYu, and Afreeca TV. These platforms offer subscribers a content library, including a VOD feature. Subscribers are allowed to replay or watch channels they previously missed. Unfortunately, due to limitations in our data collection process, we can only present the channel VOD availability and the recent broadcast VOD availability. The channel VOD sections of most channels were working normally, confirming that VODs are available without major issues. However, VODs of the most popular channels, those with a relatively higher number of subscribers, were frequently not available.

Live streaming platforms today incorporate features such as creating, viewing, sharing, and subscribing to streaming channels, thereby mimicking features found on social media platforms including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. A key differentiating feature of live streaming services is interactivity, which supports real-time user contributions. These contributions can range from the mundane text comments to more elaborate tasks such as funding popular channels.

Million Songs and Diverse Content

The singing performance is usually delivered as KTV, which stands for Karaoke Television, a very common and familiar form of entertainment in Asia and around the world. KTV may refer to different live streaming entities depending on the region and ownership of the mobile devices or platforms. Therefore, three entities, Livehouse, Bigo, and Uplive, attract a huge amount of fan-gathered interest with similar appeal and offerings, filling a Live-to-sing product niche. Animations also seem to be popular, including voice-overs in various languages, whistling, acoustic guitar playing, and a cappella singing.

Live streaming with singing, dancing, and music performances seems to have emerged as the most popular, drawing crowds of hundreds who root and chat in response to the performance. Singing and dancing are natural human pursuits, serving as vehicles of self-expression and social engagement. The aspiration of becoming a popular singer or idol group seems to be similar across many cultures, whether it’s Jinny, Alexander, ILA, JJ Lin, or BTS. The delivery usually involves singing and dancing to background music with strong melodies and easy lyrics in various languages, familiar to different ethnicities. However, live streaming is not limited to popular singers and idols having fan-gathering singing and dancing parties. There are also popular singers/recording artists, accomplished non-professional singers, amateur singers, and learners/potentials.

Exploring Unique Features

A million external factors aside, platforms also love to tout the unique added features that make using their streaming services so special. For many of the standard streaming platforms, this can include (but is by no means limited to): multi-camera support – viewer choice live cams and football matches broadcast in this way because there is never an overhaul of production when it comes to a multi-camera shoot; there is, however, additional complexity and cost. Real-time analytics – a peculiar draw for non-gaming streamers; avoid script kiddies by observing any major drop in rates; take more proof points that deter any flow that is successful. Audience engagement and interactivity – ranging from chat and reaction pages to the apps that allow your viewers to impact your game, stream, or directly donate or even trigger sound effects and physical real-world events. Subscriptions and paid options – apparently, one way to monetize funds aside from sponsored donations or integration. Most streaming providers reimburse a considerable portion of the profit from subscriptions, with a significant percentage of any channel subscriptions. Donations – through various digital means; encouraging fans to support your stream often brings in those generous few that are happy to keep broadcasters’ lights on amidst the pitfalls of an unstable paycheck (though don’t sell yourself entirely short, local taxman notwithstanding). Donations also tend to attract the sound alerts mentioned above, as incentives – or opportunities for mischief! Real-world challenges – bored of the old social eating, people on live streaming services will turn to other casual engaging activities (cooking, knitting, or simply hanging out). Taking requests and challenges permits your viewers a degree of control over your content and offers a deeper chance for connection.

Today, many streaming service providers offer the streaming of events to individuals and businesses. However, these resources are not always free of charge, and in some cases, you may also view advertisements to support the operational costs incurred by your provider to keep your content streaming smoothly. The ability to pay, typically through a variety of common e-payment services, is also available if you want to make a one-time donation or recurring payments, such as monthly subscriptions. The term “subscription” will typically afford them some privileges, and the percentage they gain from channel subscriptions is typically between a significant percentage of its base. Customization – if you have the skills, presumably, you may develop your own app or extensions too. Because it’s prioritized, being able to leave a completely branded experience during a live stream may be a considerable step. Even if only for a short duration – such as setting up a branded URL for a competition or an RSVP with bonus content – it’s a strong practical use of live streaming. For these factors and countless others, the platform you choose to stream on will be constructed. Building a connection with your audience, growing your personal or professional brand, and expressing your unique streamed content will be made simpler and streamlined by doing so with the maximum benefit of your stream.

Future Trends and Predictions in Live Streaming

If we were to try and imagine what the future landscape of live streaming will look like, we will most probably expect to see the results of the industrial experiments that are currently ongoing across the globe. There are and will be numerous opportunities for personalizing experiences, exploring interactivity, and driving even more data to sellers through augmented reality in the future. These two will both enable a distinct, enhanced in-the-moment effect that may offer.

Based on the trends that can be observed across today’s media landscape, we should pay attention to a few forecasts for the international live streaming market. It is important to remember that markets might operate differently for various users and cultures as we endeavor to piece together an Asia-wide and specifically a Singaporean context. While linear OTT platforms have the most potential to establish niche streaming solutions, live social video is predicted to be the most popular service exchanged between Asia Pacific entertainers who offer to various platforms. This suggests many “live” scheduling times are lengthier pieces scheduled months ahead and rewatched more as video-on-demand.

Also important for social platforms and scalability for newcomers, live streaming is more watched live and is viewed far less when on a tape-based platform. Secondly, experts expect that a large majority of those who produce live content will do so at a loss, where advertisement might be recognized with endorsement spots. However, exposure to entirely sponsored content will mean there is plenty of room to segment the market. These forecasts for the data generated by the survey suggest opportunities for discovery to attract a live streaming audience on one of the less advertised platforms.