The run was fun. But now it’s done. The Streaming Wars as it was termed is now the Streaming Recession. The COVID Pandemic has made this clear. With fears of the United States economy over the past three years going into a recession and with people having lost jobs and medical expenses piling up due to infection and death, people’s priorities have changed. When Netflix decided to join in on the original programming market, it initially did not have a hit on its hands. A forgotten show called Bad Samaritans. It was a sitcom that launched on March 31, 2013, with only five episodes. The show flopped so much that it’s no longer available on their platform anywhere. Netflix changed the game and saw it had to change as well. DVD sales were on the decline and in this modern age, the way to make any profit and capitalize on succeeding was to move to the internet. And what is streaming? An internet-based entertainment service. Television still exists, but it's becoming very close to being extinct that almost all of the mainstream networks have joined the streaming wars due to the rise in cord-cutting. NBC has Peacock. CBS has CBS All Access. Disney with Disney Plus which has cost them over 2.5 billion alone. Movie studios have joined such as Paramount Global with Paramount+ and Warner Bros. Discover with HBO Max. Apple has gotten into the game with Apple TV+. And who can forget about Amazon? HBO Max is having trouble staying afloat. As are all the rest of the services. The war is over because all are losing their share or piece of the pie, but regardless streaming is here for what can only be for the rest of humanity.
These services are losing cash and subscribers fast. This war has no exact winner per se. Netflix which started the trend has not found a rival amongst anyone. And it still remains king. Despite having seen a dip in subscribes losing 200,000 in April, the first of such a decline in over a decade, it saw a rebound in October adding 2.4 million new subscribers. Since November 3 the company introduced lower prices while now allowing ads for four to five minutes per hour of content they watch at $6.99 a month to recuperate the losses. This strategy has turned people away from the service. Netflix had a great model. Watch all of their catalog of shows and movies for a price either every month or whatever fit your budget with no ads. This was what made Netflix the king of streaming. No ads, unlike Hulu. But now since the ads have been introduced the stock price has slipped as it hadn’t hit its viewership target reaching only eighty percent of it. While the full results are yet to be seen, streaming isn’t what it used to be. There are too many changes, too many new products, too many different services competing for the crown, and too much money to be spent willfully by consumers even if there hadn’t been a pandemic. It feels overwhelming for anyone who has taken a break or is trying to catch up to the latest lineup. But aside from that, viewers are bored of what’s on the services and are in need of good entertainment programming. Ads are the killer of viewer retainership.
People just don’t like to pay for things. Free is what you have to beat in the internet age and you can’t beat free. So much of what is online can be seen and used for free. Nothing is better than free. Like myself, I’d rather download movies off the internet than see them in a theater unless I felt it was necessary to see one. I did so for The Irishman in 2019. 2019 can be safely assumed to be the last time anybody stepped into a movie theater before 2020. When a torrent site like The Pirate Bay offers a free download while you take security precautions to get it on your laptop or phone, why would anyone pay? It does seem like a scummy to do such a thing. But sometimes a film from the forties can’t be found on streaming services which always has something leaving at the end of every month due to the end of the contracting agreement the service has with the producers, studios, or companies that own the rights to the film or TV shows. And when there is an overload of streaming services that provide entertainment and all of which are pay-to-play services, no one, not even the wealthiest of consumers would dare spend all that money just to get the programming. A cable subscription would be a better way to save money. When a new idea like streaming takes off, there will be others willing to snag a piece which could only result in one service trying to outdo all the others. Streaming services have become a private club where exclusivity is the brand or image. And the only way to get in is to pay your way in or be left out in the street.
Too much of a good thing. We took streaming for granted wanting more and more. Writers and showrunners would ultimately leave networks to find themselves with more money and creative freedom at Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, etc. Traditional networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, and other cable channels have some to a lot of creative restrictions. They are at the behest of advertisers who have a lot of power of pulling away from the airwaves if something “immoral” or “unethical” was to be broadcast. Often conflicting with the concept of free expression, freedom of speech, and creativity. Ironically, a company like Pepsi would pull commercials from the networks over this because somehow it might affect sales of their soft drink. It’s all a gimmick to divert where the attention should be going. Their wallets. And the hypocrisy of advertisers is hurting the advertisers equally to the networks of traditional television. Tradition is a good thing to have and respect but not when it hurts the choice of viewers. The hangover is starting to set in. All of the services are raising prices to stay around. This is a sign the party is over and reality has set in.
But not only is the price hike hurting the services. So is the gluttony of the products. So many Netflix shows have been killed off after a single season of about ten or fewer episodes. Just like broadcast networks would do when citing low ratings of a show that had great potential. They’re axed off. There is competition when networks have these shows on to see how well they do during a certain time slot. But most don’t make it and the harsh business decision that streamers are facing up to. They have too much to care or even spend that gutting them is a way to save costs and might bring back subscribers. It’s a bold move these days. And maybe that is what is going on with HBO Max. HBO Max had done what Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon had done on their platforms. Allow already popular shows to be seen again on an app or computer. HBO Max is by far the most failing out of all the services. In August HBO Max cut so much programming out as part of its merger with Discovery+ after the April 2022 merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery, Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery. Discovery+ is what Warner Brothers think will be their ticket to success in the streaming market. Which means HBO Max is going to end in 2023 with the merge as Warner realized that it’s better to have one streaming service rather than two that compete with each other when it should be tackling all the others out there. According to reports, it seems Discovery+ and HBO Max will be replaced together.
Since August sixty original shows were removed, while most kids or teen-related programming, the biggest shock was the HBO original Westworld. HBO made the shocking decision to cancel Westworld due to declining ratings over the course of four seasons. Even though the show was very popular among viewers. Popular or not, it's expensive to maintain. Hence why all these programs have been removed from the service altogether. The debt for HBO is nearly $50 billion and that is money they have to figure out to get back one way or another. And more shows appear to be heading to FAST or free ad-supported streaming television. Thus, ads have found their way to help another service to get back its lost money. Max’s inventory was too much of a good thing. More continues to be taken down without warning. And films are being pulled without being released like the new House Party and Evil Dead Rise on the service. Batgirl being pulled from a theatrical release altogether and not going on the service. It won’t be released regardless due to the cost and most likely to avoid a box office failure.
Having everything or a lot can turn people away. The same it was before streaming digging through many channels just to find something to watch. And streaming services have found themselves just like cable subscriptions which is what streaming was to be the exact opposite of. The reality of the business has caught up and now the price has to be paid to have streaming around. Streaming is here to stay no matter the recent downtrends. The wars are over. No one has won anything. Most of all the consumers.