(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.)
If I can start another article patting myself on the back, I’ve noticed something of a trend. Rereading my predictions from a few years back, I’d predict future trends that were opposite of most of the news coverage, and now many of those predictions are coming true.
For example, I came out swinging against “binge” releases wayyyyy before it was cool. For a few different strategic reasons—remember, I always start with the strategy—binge release plans didn’t make sense. And the data backed it up. So I wrote about it. Remember, circa 2019, the cool thing was to simply say, “Customers love binge-watching everything, and Netflix is destroying everyone with it.”
Nowadays? Everyone from Prime Video to Disney+ to Apple TV+ to Peacock releases shows weekly, and even Netflix releases their shows in batches. To repeat myself, in 2019, folks said the idea that Netflix would release their top series in batches was unthinkable. Not enough Netflix stans discuss this fundamental change.
So if you want to know some ways the industry might change, here’s my pitch for you:
- Read a provocative EntStrategyGuy column.
- Think, “Oh my, that clashes against industry consensus.”
- (Don’t) Go on Twitter to see people angrily disagreeing.
- Wait two years, then read the trades revealing that EntStrategyGuy’s bold prediction came true.
I have two examples of that in today’s “Most Important Story of the Week” column. Of course, eagle-eyed readers will note it’s been a month since I wrote a true strategy column. That means we had a lot of articles, and none really stuck out as the most important story. Especially since the biggest story of the last two weeks, a failed proxy fight, didn’t interest me at all. That said, I kept reading about various small content moves, shifts, purchases and decisions that seem to add up to a larger whole, and that’s the story of the week.
Okay, I might have thrown my shoulder out patting myself on the back so hard, on to today’s story, the content strategy of the collective industry at the start of 2024. That plus Apple’s big antitrust suit, whether IATSE and the Teamsters will strike, the India pullback and more.
Most Important Story of the Week – What Conclusions Can We Draw from The Deluge of Content News in the First Quarter of 2024?
Like I said above, though I’d accumulated a lot of news stories in March, none of them individually screamed, “Huge Story!”, but taken together, they give us a sign of where “content” is headed in 2025 and beyond. I put content in quotes, because I’m using it to mean both television and film, plus content has almost become a bad word in Hollywood in the streaming era…
If I had to tie everything together—my weasel-y way of tossing in a thesis statement right up top—I’d say the TV of the future will look a lot like…the TV of the past. Meanwhile, while this seems like a lot of deal got done, that impression comes with a big, depressing caveat.
Conclusion 1: TV Is Getting Less Prestigious
Back in 2022, I was already banging the drum for PANTSS—procedurals, awards shows, news, talk shows, sports and sitcoms. In particular, I focused on sitcoms and procedurals. As I often wrote, people want to watch “sexy doctor shows”. From E.R. to Grey’s Anatomy to Chicago Med to The Good Doctor, the genre just works.
People seem to finally be listening. Both Netflix and Max ordered their first procedural medical shows, the latter of which has E.R. connections. Max also ordered fifteen episodes, which is a huge order for a streaming series…15 episodes! As The Ankler’s Elaine Low has reported, the networks are looking for “comfort” food, and medical dramas fit the bill. They also want to avoid difficult shows. She also noted procedurals have never sold faster.
In another interesting twist, the USA Network “blue sky” shows of yore will return, as USA has said they plan to make a fresh batch of scripted procedurals in that ilk.
Conclusion 2: The Streamers Haven’t Gone All In On Sports
While the streamers dabble in live sports, the real money has stayed on Linear TV. For example, Netflix made headlines with their next live sporting event, but it’s another one-off event, Jake Paul boxing Mike Tyson. Meanwhile, Peacock bought another NFL Football game for next fall, but only for one game in the first week of the year. Again, the streamers seem to be dabbling in sports, not going all in. My preference is to dual-cast the events on linear and streaming, but these one-off sports plays aren’t terrible investments either. I also don’t mind when sports leagues like the NFL, now, or the NBA, possibly in the future, divvy up their games on both broadcast and linear.
Contrast with the action on the linear side of the equation. ESPN went all in on the College Football Playoffs, spending $1.3 billion per year. Their announcement of the deal made no mention of streaming, but presumably the games will be on ESPN+ as well. But that’s a solid dual-cast strategy. Fox, meanwhile, is replacing WWE Smackdown with more football. The WBD sees more money in sports too, as it plans to rebrand Tru TV to a sports channel.
Conclusion 3: The Theatrical versus Streaming Debate is Alive and Well
In recent weeks, we have a few more examples of studios ignoring my advice to send their films to theaters. For example, Warner Bros. Discovery decided that their horror film, Salem’s Lot, wouldn’t go to theaters this year. They also sold the rights to The Accountant 2 to Amazon’s MGM. And despite rumors to the contrary, Amazon keeps sending most of their big films straight-to-streaming, and unless Ben Affleck insists otherwise, I’d imagine The Accountant 2: More EBITDA could suffer the same fate.
In other words, the debate over how to best distribute films is alive and well. Now, for Amazon, as I wrote last week, profit and loss doesn’t matter, so they’ll keep avoiding theaters if they can. For Warner Bros. Discovery, how do we explain it? My cynical explanation is that Salem’s Lot might be really, really, really bad, and straight-to-streaming is the new straight-to-video.
Oh, one final note. Friend of the website The Netflix Film Project on Twitter highlighted this quote from a THR profile of Dan Lin. And he said…
But is this true? Has Netflix found its “biggest hits” with “comedies, rom-coms and family films”? As someone who, you know, knows the streaming hits better than anyone, their biggest films are Glass Onion, Leave the World Behind, The Grey Man, Don’t Look Up, Red Notice, The Adam Project; mainly big action films and thrillers, or expensive projects with big stars, not romcoms and family films.
Instead, what Netflix likely meant is their most profitable films are cheaper, mid-sized films. Profit and viewership are not the same thing! To tie to the point above, the future of straight-to-streaming films will look a lot more like straight-to-video or made-for-TV movies, and not huge blockbusters.
Conclusion 4: Everyone is selling second window rights or rescuing projects
The other big lesson of 2024 is that making money matters. If folks can sell the rights to something, they will, and often the original buyer won’t fight for exclusivity. For example, Fifth Season, which made a lot of early Apple TV+ shows, can now sell a lot of those shows to other networks, meaning the exclusivity window for Apple TV+ expired (and wasn’t that long). Same for two Amazon shows, Judy Justice—which I’ve covered before—and now the second window rights to the Patton Oswald game show The 1% Club, which will air on broadcast too.
Conclusion 5: A Few Streamers Are Still Spending Money…
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