Streaming television


Streaming television is the digital distribution of television media content, such as films and series, over Internet-based streaming media platforms. In contrast to over-the-air, cable, and satellite transmissions, or IPTV service, streaming television is provided as over-the-top media. Television content includes productions made by or for OTT services, and acquired by them with licensing agreements. The length of a streaming television series episode can be anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes.
By 2023, streaming television represented 38% of global TV viewing with 1.8 billion subscriptions to streaming platforms. In 2024, streaming television became "the dominant form of TV viewing" in the United States. It surpassed cable and network television viewing in 2025.
Of the top streaming platforms, Netflix had over 325 million subscribers as of December 2025, making it the most popular global streaming television platform.

History

1990s

Up until the 1990s, it was not thought possible that a television show could be squeezed into the limited telecommunication bandwidth of a copper telephone cable to provide a streaming service of acceptable quality, as the required bandwidth of a digital television signal was around 200Mbit/s, which was 2,000 times greater than the bandwidth of a speech signal over a copper telephone wire.
Streaming services started as a result of two major technological developments: MPEG video compression and asymmetric digital subscriber line data communication. By the year 2000, a television broadcast could be compressed to 2Mbit/s, but most consumers still had little opportunity to obtain greater than 1Mbit/s connection speeds.
The first worldwide live-streaming event was a radio live broadcast of a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees streamed by ESPN SportsZone on September 5, 1995.

2000s

The mid-2000s were the beginning of television programs becoming available via the Internet. In November 2003, Angelos Diamantoulakis launched the streaming television service TVonline, making it the world's first television station to produce and broadcast content exclusively over the internet via web page. The online video platform site YouTube was launched in early 2005, allowing users to share illegally posted television programs. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, and later from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site. Apple's iTunes service also began offering select television programs and series in 2005, available for download after direct payment.
During the mid-2000s, the streaming media was based on UDP, whereas the basis of the majority of the Internet was HTTP and content delivery networks. In 2007, HTTP-based adaptive streaming was introduced by Move Networks. This new technology would be a significant change for the industry. One year later the introduction of HTTP-based adaptive streaming, many companies such as Microsoft and Netflix developed their streaming technology. In 2009, Apple launched HTTP Live Streaming.
Television networks and other independent services began creating sites where shows and programs could be streamed online. Amazon Prime Video began in the United States as Amazon Unbox in 2006. Netflix, a website originally created for DVD rentals and sales, began providing streaming content in 2007. The first generation Apple TV was released in 2007. In 2008 Hulu, owned by NBC and Fox, was launched, followed by tv.com in 2009, owned by CBS.
Digital media players also began to become available to the public during this time. In 2008, the first generation Roku streaming device was announced. These digital media players have continued to be updated and new generations released.
In 2008, the International Academy of Web Television, headquartered in Los Angeles, formed in order to organize and support television actors, authors, executives, and producers in streaming television and web series. The organization also administers the selection of winners for the Streamy Awards. In 2009, the Los Angeles Web Series Festival was founded. Several other festivals and award shows have been dedicated solely to web content, including the Indie Series Awards and the Vancouver Web Series Festival.

2010s

in 2010, Adobe launched HTTP Dynamic Streaming. In addition, HTTP-based adaptive streaming was chosen for important streaming events such as Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Vancouver and London Olympic Games, and many others and on premium on-demand services.
The increase in streaming services required a new standardization, therefore in 2012, with the contributions of Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, and other companies, Dynamic Adaptive Streaming, known as MPEG-DASH, was published as the new HTTP-based adaptive streaming standard.
Smart TVs took over the television market after 2010 and continue to partner with new providers to bring streaming video to even more users. As of 2015, smart TVs are the only type of middle to high-end television being produced. Amazon's version of a digital media player, Amazon Fire TV, was not offered to the public until 2014.
Access to television programming has evolved from computer and television access to include mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Corresponding apps for mobile devices started to become available via app stores in 2008, but they grew in popularity in the 2010s with the rapid deployment of LTE cellular networks. These apps enable users to stream television content on mobile devices that support them.
In 2013, in response to the shifting of the soap opera All My Children from broadcast to streaming television, a new category for "Fantastic web-only series" in the Daytime Emmy Awards was created. That year, Netflix made history with the first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for a streaming television series at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards, for Arrested Development, Hemlock Grove, and House of Cards. Hulu earned the first Emmy win for Outstanding Drama Series, for The Handmaid's Tale at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2017.
Traditional cable and satellite television providers began to offer streaming services. In 2012, British broadcaster Sky launched Now streaming service in the United Kingdom. Sling TV was unveiled by Dish Network in January 2015. Cable company Comcast announced an HBO plus broadcast TV package at a price discounted from basic broadband plus basic cable in July 2015. DirecTV launched their streaming service, DirecTV Stream, in 2016. In 2017, YouTube launched YouTube TV, a streaming service that allows users to watch live television programs from popular cable or network channels, and record shows to stream anywhere, anytime.
By the end 2015, Netflix had almost 75 million world-wide subscribers. In 2017, 28% of US adults cited streaming services as their main means for watching television, and 61% of those ages 18 to 29 cited it as their main method.

2020s

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had a strong impact in the television streaming business with the lifestyle changes such as staying at home and lockdowns.
By 2024, Netflix had become the world's largest streaming television platform with 260.28 million global subscribers. By the end of 2025, its active subscribers total had grown to over 325 million.
As of May 2025, Nielsen reported that streaming represented 44.8% of all television viewing, compared to 44.2% for broadcast and cable combined.

Technology

The Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV consortium of industry companies is currently promoting and establishing an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast and broadband digital television and multimedia applications with a single-user interface.
BBC iPlayer originally incorporated peer-to-peer streaming, moved towards centralized distribution for their video streaming services. BBC executive Anthony Rose cited network performance as an important factor in the decision, as well as consumers being unhappy with their own network bandwidth being used for transmitting content to other viewers. Samsung TV has also announced their plans to provide streaming options including 3D Video on Demand through their Explore 3D service.

Access control

Some streaming services incorporate digital rights management. The W3C made the controversial decision to adopt Encrypted Media Extensions due in large part to motivations to provide copy protection for streaming content. Sky Go has software that is provided by Microsoft to prevent content being copied.
Additionally, BBC iPlayer makes use of a parental control system giving users the option to "lock" content, requiring a password to access it. The goal of these systems is to enable parents to keep children from viewing sexually themed, violent, or otherwise age-inappropriate material. Flagging systems can be used to warn a user that content may be certified or that it is intended for viewing post-watershed. Honour systems are also used where users are asked for their dates of birth or age to verify if they are able to view certain content.

IPTV

delivers television content using signals based on the Internet Protocol, through managed private network infrastructure entirely owned by a single telecom or Internet service provider. This stands in contrast to delivering content over unmanaged public networks - a practice known as over-the-top content delivery. Both IPTV and OTT use the Internet protocol over a packet-switched network to transmit data, but IPTV operates in a closed system—a dedicated, managed network controlled by the local cable, satellite, telephone, or fiber-optic company. In its simplest form, IPTV simply replaces traditional circuit switched analog or digital television channels with digital channels which happen to use packet-switched transmission. In both the old and new systems, subscribers have set-top boxes or other customer-premises equipment that communicates directly over company-owned or dedicated leased lines with central-office servers. Packets never travel over the public Internet, so the television provider can guarantee enough local bandwidth for each customer's needs.
The Internet protocol is a cheap, standardized way to enable two-way communication and simultaneously provide different data to different customers. This supports DVR-like features for time shifting television: for example, to catch up on a TV show that was broadcast hours or days ago, or to replay the current TV show from its beginning. It also supports video on demand—browsing a catalog of videos which might be unrelated to the company's scheduled broadcasts.
IPTV has an ongoing standardization process.
IPTVOver-the-top technology
Content providerLocal telecomStudio, channel, or independent service
Transmission networkLocal telecom - dedicated owned or leased networkPublic Internet + local telecom
ReceiverLocal telecom provides Purchased by consumer
Display deviceScreen provided by consumerScreen provided by consumer
ExamplesU-verse TV, Bell Fibe TV, Verizon Fios Video on demand services like 3ABN+, Disney+, Catchplay, Disney+ Hotstar, MeWatch, iWantTFC, Vidio, Sky Go, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Discovery+, Peacock, Paramount+, JioVoot, BET+, YuppTV, Crunchyroll, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, SonyLIV, myTV, NOW, Noggin, Viu, ZEE5, MX Player.