20 219
sourced datapoints in the database · counted 2026-09-23 · 1,660 source domains
See streaming before it moves.
You have a decision to make in a market moving faster than the research houses measure it: entering vertical drama, launching in Africa, modelling the economics, defending a plan to a board. Streaming Lens gives you the figure, its source and its date — never "according to market estimates." A newsletter every week, two live reports, 7 data silos, including 5 reports, queryable inside Claude or ChatGPT. Single-author: sourced, dated, signed.
Free · in English
Vertical drama — the booklet
Everyone will be talking about it this year. Eleven chapters, two appendices, 132 dated references: what it is, how it gets made, where the money goes, what China has just changed, and what Europe actually produces. One hour fifty of reading, or twenty minutes for the essentials.
What you can ask
Ask the question. Get the figure, its source and its date.
- What does an episode of vertical drama cost, from AI-hybrid shoots to premium?
- What changed in ReelShort's economics this quarter?
- Why did SVOD fail in sub-Saharan Africa, and what works instead?
- How does mobile money change platform economics in Kenya?
- Which European broadcasters are already commissioning vertical formats?
Every answer is backed by dated sources and the underlying dataset — 20,219 datapoints across 7 silos. You ask inside Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor; the MCP protocol is only the pipe.
TL;DR
- Vertical Invasion 2026 (527 pages, micro-drama: $14B in 2026 per Omdia) and The Next Billion Viewers (Africa Streaming 2026, 399 pages, OTT: $4.63B in 2026) are LIVE. Single-user, enterprise, and multi-seat licenses. Pricing published.
- Piracy, Creator Economy, Sports Streaming 2026 — three reports in progress, from 480 to 1,900 datapoints each. The 300 threshold is cleared everywhere; what follows now is the writing, not the collecting.
- Live Intelligence — Lens data inside your assistant, access on request: API access to 20,219 live datapoints, native integration with Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor / any MCP client.
- Strategic briefing, 1,500€ excl. VAT: 90 minutes on video on your question, prepared from your documents, then a written memo. Details.
- Streaming Radar, the newsletter, comes out every week and is free. It's the long-form channel that feeds the reports.
The verticals I follow.
Five verticals, and the news that runs through them. Two carry a live report: vertical drama (Chinese micro-drama, ReelShort, DramaBox, the international rollout) and African OTT (mobile-money, SVOD graveyard, Canal+ / Showmax consolidation). The France analysis follows what the format becomes when it meets a market, local producers and local financing. Three other verticals are being built in the database before they are written: creator economy, sports rights, piracy and its economy.
The common thread: which payment rails and content formats will unlock the markets missing from Western investment theses. Where generalist firms cover twenty-seven markets at surface depth, Lens digs into five. Whatever moves from one week to the next goes through the newsletter, Streaming Radar.
Reports live now.
- Vertical Invasion 2026 — LIVE v4.6.0 · 527 pages · IP Factory thesis · ReelShort/DramaBox economics · Fox, Holywater, KOCCA · micro-drama value chain.
- The Next Billion Viewers — LIVE v1.2.0 · 20 annexes A-T, including Annex T (exhaustive coverage) · Canal+ dominance · SVOD graveyard · corridor map · North Africa deep dive · SVOD base restated ~7.8M SSA, Showmax $429M – ~$522M bracket.
- The Enforcement Paradox — Piracy & Streaming 2026 (ENRICHING) · 12 chapters · 501 datapoints.
- From Bedroom to Boardroom — Creator Economy 2026 (ENRICHING) · 10 chapters · 2,132 datapoints · 12 companies tracked.
- The Stadium Has No Walls — Sports Streaming 2026 (ENRICHING) · 15 chapters · 975 datapoints · 20 companies tracked.
Four ways in.
- Read (free)
- The Streaming Radar newsletter every week, the PDF teasers of both reports, the vertical drama booklet. Subscribe.
- License a report (5,000€ excl. VAT)
- For framing a board meeting, an investment decision, an M&A. Full PDF report (527 pages for Vertical Invasion, 399 for Africa) + Excel datasets, named single-user license, minor updates included for 12 months. Enterprise / multi-seat on quote. Details at /pricing.
- Query the data (MCP, on request)
- For teams doing daily monitoring who want Lens data live inside their AI stack. 181 tools, 20,219 datapoints, 7 silos including 5 reports, OAuth 2.1 or API key auth. Does not include the report PDFs — this is live data, not the written deliverable. Learn more.
- Strategic briefing (1,500€ excl. VAT)
- 90 minutes on video, prepared from your documents, then a written memo. Most useful when a decision has a deadline: a deal to close, a board in 30 days, a product pivot to validate. Details · Book a call.
Beyond one session: report with briefing on quote, 1,000€ excl. VAT per day, projects on quote. Full grid at /pricing.
The shortest path to following Lens.
Streaming Radar arrives every week, free: what moved in these markets, with the figures and their sources. The Vertical Invasion 2026 teaser (40-page PDF) stays free to download against a work address.
Questions asked on sales calls.
What makes you different from Omdia, Gartner, Ampere?
Single-author, two markets covered deeply instead of twenty-seven flat, 10× lower price, 10× shorter update cycle. Lens isn't a replacement for Omdia — it's a precise complement on markets where generalist firms are late (vertical drama) or structurally blind (African OTT, for lack of fieldwork).
Are your numbers reliable?
Every number on this site carries its source and date in the caption. Full methodology at /methodology. If a number is wrong, write to me — I'll update it and credit you.
Can I get a sample before buying?
Yes. The Vertical Invasion 2026 teaser (40 pages) is free to download. So is the Africa Streaming teaser, on the report page. For an extract targeted at your question, write to ludovic@streaming-radar.com.
What exactly is the MCP?
A Model Context Protocol server that exposes 181 tools to LLMs (Claude, ChatGPT via plugin, Cursor, any MCP-compatible client). You query Lens datapoints in natural language from your AI assistant — "what's Showmax's market share in Kenya?" returns the value, source, date, link. More at /mcp.
Can I access the 3 reports "in progress"?
Not yet. They open when each clears 300 validated datapoints and 12 profiled companies. At this stage, early access is via a strategic briefing (1,500€ excl. VAT), which includes a review of the current draft.
Do you take long consulting engagements?
Nothing beyond three months, and no commissioned reports. The starting point is the strategic briefing: 90 minutes and a written memo, 1,500€ excl. VAT. If the question needs more, the work is done by the day (1,000€ excl. VAT) or as a project on quote, from a few days up to three months. The grid is at /pricing.