While online-video outlets and big media companies are jostling to snag the best premium video deals, smaller Christian companies and content providers can create and capitalize on their own niches.

All signs continue to point to video being the future of media consumption.

By 2017, Invodo predicts that 74 percent of Internet traffic will originate from video consumption.

Facebook and YouTube are battling for dominance in online video. Yahoo is looking to host its own creative video portal.

Web video startups are offering generous revenue sharing deals, hoping to capitalize on frustration with the big guys.

So securing a place for your content on these platforms has to be enticing. However, will they be the most beneficial platforms for Christian ministry and outreach?

Acquiring audience and reaching them at scale on Facebook and YouTube is not cheap. Their fees, revenue sharing, and audience access policies are changing all the time. And, there are just simply some things that these companies don’t do so well, such as allowing you full control over your content, especially important for ministry-focused users.

That’s were video and audio hosting platforms come into play.

The biggest downside to these services has been cost, but low cost solutions have emerged over the last few years. Christian video platforms can also offer specialized services tailored for ministry, and they offer you more control over content, often from your own website.

It will be interesting to see in the coming months if someone steps up with a platform that is free, and a business model that can please both content-creators (100% revenue sharing) and users (free content).

Within this battle of giants for video dominance, there’s an opportunity for niche operators in the Christian space to gain a greater foothold

As we talk about often on the blog, it begins by industry participants working together to combine ministry services, aggregate “premium” programming that traditionally could have only been experienced on TV and Radio, and bringing cost effective solutions into the market.

When that type of consolidation happens at scale, an industry wide digital broadcast platform may emerge, and then we will see the user base for faith-focused content really take off.

Non-profit giving and monetizing sponsorships will follow, and these new platform models will establish themselves in the digital missions landscape.