In late November, AMC Networks announced impending layoffs and Starting of Christina Spade, CEO for just a few months. The move itself was nothing new amid heightened economic uncertainty.Earlier that month, tech giant Meta eliminated Over 11,000 jobs. But a note from Executive Chairman James Dolan to AMC employees. That James Dolan — Explaining the decision made entertainment at large nervous. . “This was not the case. We are primarily a content company, and the mechanics of monetizing content are confusing.”
In a corporate-language way, Dolan summarized the land situation. The subtext of the streaming wars has always been that the booming days of freewheeling spending won’t last forever. A battle between smaller companies like AMC, which operates a nascent service, should have been one of the few surviving players. Lift all boats. But 2022 was the year that some of the core assumptions driving Hollywood’s digital revolution fell apart. It was also the year that made it clear that the salad days of streaming were completely past, visibly not just to book-reading professionals, but to the average consumer. deadline Comments about lunch break.
For example, at the beginning of the year you can stream Westworld On HBO Max in anticipation of the next season of the one-off hit. Not only now Westworld canceled; it was Removed from platform Completely make the catalog available for sale to unidentified third parties.A few months ago, a millennial home cook like myself was looking forward to streaming chef Alison Lohman’s new show on her CNN+. delay Because the entire platform was suddenly scrapped. As of January, there were no ads near the Netflix interface.a few minutes of your time now cheaper subscription feeThis is a violation of what was once one of the company’s most rigorous principles.
Its principles can be summarized as follows: The future of entertainment is about increasing accessibility (by consumers) and explosive growth (by businesses) in exchange for traditional revenue streams such as box office revenue, syndication fees, and advertising. for ) is a revenue model that exchanges for Backed by subscriptions, debt and investors, Netflix has looked like it could actually deliver on this promise over the past decade. It has spent huge amounts of money creating movies and shows that appeal to a truly global audience, attracting customers who pay enough to justify the cost. Literally changed. Users were trained to expect an entire season binge upon release, and without an act break he marathoned hour-long episodes, accustomed to subtitled imports as simple facts of everyday life.
Other entertainment companies soon followed suit. Among them were Disney, which launched Disney+ in late 2019, and his WarnerMedia, the original parent company of HBO Max.but after the latter formally merged Discovery Networks was founded in April of this year, almost a year after announcing the new organization, but it has come to symbolize the limits of the company and its fans’ reliance on streaming. Part of the reason is that his CEO, David Zaslav, who faces tens of billions of dollars in corporate debt, said it would be very unwise to put all his eggs in a very expensive basket. Because I became an advocate for ideas. “The grand experiment of making something at any cost is over,” he said. Declared Last month he dismissed his competitor’s (and predecessor’s) “spending” strategy.[ing] Earn money by giving up while getting rewarded.
Some of this pivot is relatively easy to root for. Increased emphasis About the theatrical release after the previous administration released the entire 2021 slate simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters. (This tactic succeeded in improving service, alienated Longtime collaborators like Christopher Nolan called Max “the worst streaming service” and then moved to Universal. beginning what it turns out many Purge: show canceled (Ross Espooky), and remove it completely from the platform (vinyl), or both (Gordita Chronicles, Love Life, Raised Wolves, more). Most shockingly, the service discarded an entire movie that was nearing completion (bat girl) and television seasons (previously updated minx).
Such drastic measures Partially attributed to tax credits specific to the merger aftermath.But they also represent a return to the way television is done Already used Restoring old ground rules and breaking new ground rules that viewers of all generations have grown accustomed to. It wasn’t always possible to have command access to the full archive of the show, nor was the original distributor holding it in perpetuity.shows like Fboy Island When wolf raised It was leased to make extra money for their studio and that’s exactly what Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to do with them. , you can expect reruns while surfing the channels.
Even entertainment’s great disruptors have taken steps toward a more traditional model.Less than two weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery was born, Netflix Loss of first subscriber over 10 years, followed by more steep drop next quarter. The subsequent decline in stock prices, along with the stock price declines of Disney and Paramount Global, had ripple effects throughout the industry. In response, Netflix announced the aforementioned ad tier. also, Upcoming Chris Rock Specials This is another inversion of the once sacred internal rule.
Batch releases like recent two-part rollouts Harry & Meghan, It’s become more common in recent years on both Netflix and Netflix other platforms, splitting the difference between binge and weekly releases. in the meantime, knife out sequel glass onion We will be watching closely when the service launches this weekend. If that worked well enough, the film could have made more experimental balloon claims, like a strictly limited, one-week run around Thanksgiving. Estimated $15 million From just 700 theaters. If there is evidence that the week has boosted to all the complaints that Netflix is leaving money on the table by not extending that period. glass onionperformance on the platform itself — as Zaslav says, Batman HBO Max may have more experiments in the future.
A common joke is that the media is back where it started innovating. Commercials, cinemas, secondary markets: we are rediscovering them, all of which have had their strengths since the beginning. But it’s not easy to flip the switch and go back to the old ways.pay cable continues to declinealthough the box office still lags behind Pre-pandemic total up to a third. Part of that decline is due to supply shortages, general resistance Head to the multiplex of genres you’ve been conditioned to think of as home viewing. Even Netflix’s ad levels aren’t a panacea.according to wall street journal, Last month, only 9% of new subscribers in the US opted for ads, and just under half of them were existing subscribers who switched from an ad-free plan.Before that, Digiday report Netflix’s failure to reach the viewership promised to the advertiser and to offer a refund. The company struggles to subvert the expectations of uninterrupted amusement that it first created.
This leaves the enterprise between a rock and a hard place, or as Doran puts it, chaos. Take Disney for example. Shocking CEO Shuffle Last month was a direct result of the $1 billion loss in streaming. (Other factors played a role in the board’s dissatisfaction with Bob Chapek, but it was the deciding factor.) But when Bob Iger’s top returns faded, Disney decided it was time for everyone else. Unrestricted growth and pre-streaming gains are always revealed as illusions while previous paths to sustainable production are collapsing in the rearview mirror. It’s a grim note to wrap up with, but it’s better to face 2023 with your eyes open.