The domestic ecology of Australian subscription video on demand services

Abstract

This article presents early findings from a study examining the introduction of subscription video on demand (SVOD) services to the Australian market from the perspective of the Australian home. Through a series of group interviews with nine ‘early adopter’ households in Melbourne and Sydney, I detail how these services entered the home and contribute to changing habits and practices around media consumption and access. These interviews reveal that despite the ‘mobile’ promise of SVOD services, households still view the television as a central site for communal media consumption. This consumption is also becoming increasingly legal, with participants engaging in less copyright infringement after subscribing. While many households are still using circumvention tools to access overseas libraries, this is highly dependent on the presence of a digitally literate householder.