Lorson believes Fetch’s offering is rich enough to survive this fast evolving market. “We see ourselves very much as the Westfield of the entertainment space,” he says. “We maintain a different risk profile and a different investment profile because we aren’t bidding for and defending expensive, exclusive content. We aren’t distracted by titanic shifts in the markets in acquiring and retaining key content assets.”

Netflix’s director of business development, Ben Cox, said the streaming service is focused on finding easy ways to reach customers. “Fetch TV has done a great job as an aggregator incorporating Netflix throughout it’s simple to use navigation, and was Netflix’s first set-top box partner in Australia back in early 2015,” Mr Cox said.

But for a company that has existed for 13 years, Fetch’s market penetration isn’t high and its subscription growth is not where it needs to be. While the company has been talked about in industry circles for more than a decade, it has not enjoyed the same rapid growth experienced by other local market entrants, like streaming service Stan, owned by Nine Entertainment Co (which also owns this masthead), or more recently Foxtel’s Kayo Sports and Binge.

According to data from research firm Gemba, about 6 percent of Australians subscribe to Fetch. Lorson says Fetch operates in 670,000 households and has 750,000 billings when including people who run the service in multiple rooms. In 2018, it hit 700,000 subscribers for the first time, and Lorson says the million subscribers mark is just around the corner.

Meanwhile, rival Foxtel reported 3.9 million paying users as of June 30 – 1.9 million of which were residential and commercial broadcast subscribers that use its set-top box (the rest of its subscribers use streaming services Binge and Kayo Sports).

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Some industry observers believe it is the absence of exclusive content that has hindered Fetch’s growth. Others point to the fact it relies on telco providers – that typically don’t promote entertainment products- to market its product. But Telstra’s 35 per cent ownership of Foxtel, which makes it unable to partner with Fetch, is also likely to have had an impact.

Mr Lorson says a slower-than-anticipated NBN rollout, the TPG Telecom and Vodafone Hutchison Australia merger, and Vocus’ privatisation have also affected Fetch’s growth projections. He says cost pressure experienced by telcos and drops in traffic to stores during the COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult to find new customers.

“Like most media players over the past two years, Fetch experienced some headwinds,” he says.

Fetch makes money through the commission it receives every time a person subscribes to a pay walled platform through its service. It also shares revenue with its telcos partners each time a person signs up to its service and earns money each time a person buys an extension to its offering. And it is profitable – earnings [before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] was $10 million for the last financial year.

“The business model was designed to survive and flourish by clipping tickets as opposed to trying to earn monopoly from exclusive content,” Mr Lorson says.

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But there are some that are sceptical of the Fetch model. Multiple industry executives who requested anonymity questioned the path forward for a risk-averse service at a time when the world is moving to app-based viewing and global companies are investing in aggregation.

“They have a good piece of technology but haven’t been brave enough to make the investments necessary for it to be a success at scale,” one industry observer familiar with the business, who requested anonymity, says. “They’re taking a small margin per subscription from telcos that adopt their service. Limited downside, but no upside.”

But Lorson doesn’t consider himself risk averse given the number of competitors he is fighting against in market. “We invested heavily where we think can differentiate, and that’s been on technology,” he says. “In this market, strategic can often be used as a euphemism to rationalise content investments where the numbers simply don’t work.”

Lorson has backed the company’s model since its creation. But for 13 years, success has always seemed just around the corner.

All signs point to Fetch needing a partnership with a local or international player to grow.

But what form that partnership takes remains unclear. “We certainly recognise the potential value of strategic partnerships,” he says.

“Like every other media company, we’ve had more than a few conversations.”

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