Determinants in the Valuation of Streaming Companies and Streaming Platforms

Abstract

The triumph of streaming platforms has its origins in the last millennium. Mobile communications standards and, thus, transmission bandwidths continued to develop. At least to the same extent, physical media carriers lost massive importance, eroding the business models of traditional media companies and causing industries to converge. Internet and media companies, therefore, felt compelled to acquire streaming platforms or entire companies operating such platforms. The paper focuses on the valuation of streaming companies and streaming platforms, which can be regarded as definable parts of a company: What is the maximum price that the rational presumptive acquirer of such a company (part) can pay for them without putting himself in a worse position by acquiring it than by not acquiring it? The value to be determined has the character of a decision limit and depends on the target system and the decision field of the valuation subject. The valuation of a streaming company is divided into the following three steps in a decision-oriented sense: 1. Delimitation and quantification of the relevant future successes (Determination of relevant data) 2. Transformation of the determined data into a decision value 3. Weighing up (subjective) decision value and (objective) price. The aim of this paper is to support valuation steps 1 and 2. To this purpose, the paper primarily presents the fundamentals of valuation and the delimitation and quantification of the relevant future earnings. The main task of valuation is the transformation of the qualitative and quantitative information on future successes determined from well-founded forecasts into a value that fulfills the function pursued by using the future performance value. This value is ultimately intended to support the decision-making subject's decision.