Have Streaming Services lost their advantage?
Discussion
I was musing this recently... Netflix ultimately replaced Blockbuster, which started out as a video shop. Video shops all had the great selling point that they offered a cheap way to watch films from a huge variety of sources, be that Disney, Paramount, Universal, etc. In fact, the publisher of the video/film was never even considered by the consumer, it was just a variety on offer. They all had the latest films, as well as the not-quite latest films, and then a varied selection of older stuff.
This changed to be postal video for a flat monthly fee, because we all got too lazy to go to the local shop, then Netflix brought movies straight to our TV via the glories of the internet so we don't even have to go to the front door to collect the video that was delivered by post.
All seemed to be great with this idea and I felt that Netflix had the future of TV in the bag with the ultimate easy to browse content platform. That was until all the brands decided they wanted to do it too. What we are left with are all the big studios with their own 'video shops' and a reluctance to share their content with anyone else.
And prices for these services are going up and up. Or you can have adverts, but who ever wants adverts?!
Imagine (for those old enough) having 5 different video shops on the high street all with completely different films, and having to research which one might have the film that you want before you go down.
The advantage of the video shop was it offered a huge variety of films from a wide variety of sources. Netflix still does this, but it feels like it has less options now as other companies are shying away from them, preferring their own brand solution instead, leaving Netflix with more and more of their own productions as their main advertised content.
I think we might have lost out over the old school alternative; that humble video shop. The video shop didn't care who made the film and it always had lots of copies available. It also had the benefit of feeling more like an occasion looking at the different films on offer, rather than spending half an hour mindlessly scrolling through all the crap to find something that might be worth a watch.
Compare all of this to the music industry which seems to have just licenced everything to every music subscription service, so you just pick your favourite and away you go. I believe this should have been Netflix for TV and film. And for a time, it pretty much was.
What's your thoughts? Do you feel that production companies are spoiling what could - and should - be a great universal TV and movie platform that everyone can enjoy, or do you prefer having lots of different subscriptions? Also, curious to know if anyone does miss video shops and the experience they offered?
This changed to be postal video for a flat monthly fee, because we all got too lazy to go to the local shop, then Netflix brought movies straight to our TV via the glories of the internet so we don't even have to go to the front door to collect the video that was delivered by post.
All seemed to be great with this idea and I felt that Netflix had the future of TV in the bag with the ultimate easy to browse content platform. That was until all the brands decided they wanted to do it too. What we are left with are all the big studios with their own 'video shops' and a reluctance to share their content with anyone else.
And prices for these services are going up and up. Or you can have adverts, but who ever wants adverts?!
Imagine (for those old enough) having 5 different video shops on the high street all with completely different films, and having to research which one might have the film that you want before you go down.
The advantage of the video shop was it offered a huge variety of films from a wide variety of sources. Netflix still does this, but it feels like it has less options now as other companies are shying away from them, preferring their own brand solution instead, leaving Netflix with more and more of their own productions as their main advertised content.
I think we might have lost out over the old school alternative; that humble video shop. The video shop didn't care who made the film and it always had lots of copies available. It also had the benefit of feeling more like an occasion looking at the different films on offer, rather than spending half an hour mindlessly scrolling through all the crap to find something that might be worth a watch.
Compare all of this to the music industry which seems to have just licenced everything to every music subscription service, so you just pick your favourite and away you go. I believe this should have been Netflix for TV and film. And for a time, it pretty much was.
What's your thoughts? Do you feel that production companies are spoiling what could - and should - be a great universal TV and movie platform that everyone can enjoy, or do you prefer having lots of different subscriptions? Also, curious to know if anyone does miss video shops and the experience they offered?
The streaming services each have as many titles as any video store could ever hold but it's pretty hard to find what you're after if it's not new or hasn't been picked up by some algorithm. The search function on chromecast isn't much of a help as I've searched for titles and it has given me the only option of hiring it from them, then I've searched and found it on Netflix or Amazon Prime or Disney Plus or Mubi etc....
No luck with the google searching for (off the top of my head just now): The Naked Gun, They Live, Inspector Montalbano, original Pink Panther movies, National Lampoons American Vacation, Mike Tyson mysteries, MXC, The Party.......... I've searched in the array of streaming services I've had and nada. And there's no way to find which streaming service they belong to.
No luck with the google searching for (off the top of my head just now): The Naked Gun, They Live, Inspector Montalbano, original Pink Panther movies, National Lampoons American Vacation, Mike Tyson mysteries, MXC, The Party.......... I've searched in the array of streaming services I've had and nada. And there's no way to find which streaming service they belong to.
Quickly replying before I go to work, this is a subject that fascinates me.
Piracy used to be rife, either copying cassettes, video’s, Napster, burning cd’s and then when streaming came along and you could pay the likes of Apple a sensible monthly fee for great quality music in the correct order, with cover art etc why bother to pirate low quality MP3’s?
I remember streaming Star Wars in full HD from my Xbox using Microsoft’s streaming service, totally legit with fantastic sound and video, way better than knock-off Nigel’s version.
And then everyone decided to offer a subscription based streaming service and the content got diluted between providers to the point where it is today, a f
king mess for consumers.
So ‘They’ got greedy and now every man and his dog uses a dodgy Firestick because it’s cheap and ALL content is available.
Seems to me like movie/music studios all have short memories?
Piracy used to be rife, either copying cassettes, video’s, Napster, burning cd’s and then when streaming came along and you could pay the likes of Apple a sensible monthly fee for great quality music in the correct order, with cover art etc why bother to pirate low quality MP3’s?
I remember streaming Star Wars in full HD from my Xbox using Microsoft’s streaming service, totally legit with fantastic sound and video, way better than knock-off Nigel’s version.
And then everyone decided to offer a subscription based streaming service and the content got diluted between providers to the point where it is today, a f
king mess for consumers.So ‘They’ got greedy and now every man and his dog uses a dodgy Firestick because it’s cheap and ALL content is available.
Seems to me like movie/music studios all have short memories?
That Simpsons meme pretty much sums it up for me.
I guess the business model is that because it's 'only' £x a month we'll sign-up for that one good film / show they have and then forget about it. I'm certainly guilty of that, we've got Netflix, Paramount, Disney, Prime I'm sure there are others I've forgotten about and still I'll see a promo for something that looks good, only to find it's on another platform I've not heard off before..
The one positive thing though is I finally ditched Virgin and went back to Sky Stream, it works reasonably well and integrates reasonably well with the various streaming platforms so it's 1 UI and you don't have to remember what platform has what. Collectively it all costs me about £80 a month - so really it's like having Sky before the streaming services came along. The more things change etc.
Like Sky 10 years ago, there are lots of options, and most of them are crap. Even Netflix, I don't remember anything really interesting on Netflix for a while now.
I guess the business model is that because it's 'only' £x a month we'll sign-up for that one good film / show they have and then forget about it. I'm certainly guilty of that, we've got Netflix, Paramount, Disney, Prime I'm sure there are others I've forgotten about and still I'll see a promo for something that looks good, only to find it's on another platform I've not heard off before..
The one positive thing though is I finally ditched Virgin and went back to Sky Stream, it works reasonably well and integrates reasonably well with the various streaming platforms so it's 1 UI and you don't have to remember what platform has what. Collectively it all costs me about £80 a month - so really it's like having Sky before the streaming services came along. The more things change etc.
Like Sky 10 years ago, there are lots of options, and most of them are crap. Even Netflix, I don't remember anything really interesting on Netflix for a while now.
I suspect that the platforms will start offering more 'free with adverts' content (as Amazon do with 'FreeVee') perhaps for previous seasons of a show where to watch the latest season you'd have to sign up for the paid-for subscription.
I know from friends with several kids they pay for multiple streaming services just to keep everyone happy/quiet as each person's favourite show is somewhere different, so that type of customer must be what the services rely on.
I know from friends with several kids they pay for multiple streaming services just to keep everyone happy/quiet as each person's favourite show is somewhere different, so that type of customer must be what the services rely on.
heisthegaffer said:
To find where shows are I use https://www.justwatch.com/uk
I'd second this. Easy to find what you are looking for and all the prices by platform.The issue for me is that typically i find that a platform only has one or two movies or shows i want to watch and the rest just looks like filler. So i end up just doing a month here and there.
I read or watched a youtube video which stated that one of the biggest winner's out of the streaming wars was Sony, as they decided to continue to offer licensing instead of ring fencing their content to their own platform.
I read or watched a youtube video which stated that one of the biggest winner's out of the streaming wars was Sony, as they decided to continue to offer licensing instead of ring fencing their content to their own platform.
It's an interesting situation, and I can't see the current business model continuing very long into the future. I suspect that many of the "smaller" streaming services will have to sign up agreements with the bigger fish - Prime, Netflix, Apple - to provide their content to a reasonable sized audience. If they don' they will just die off, allowing the big boys to licence the content themselves more cheaply.
Personally, I've got Prime, and have cancelled Netflix and Disney because we just weren't watching enough to justify having them. No way will I be signing up to Paramount+, Starz, Britbox, Hulu or whatever just to watch one or two shows.
Personally, I've got Prime, and have cancelled Netflix and Disney because we just weren't watching enough to justify having them. No way will I be signing up to Paramount+, Starz, Britbox, Hulu or whatever just to watch one or two shows.
P-Jay said:
That Simpsons meme pretty much sums it up for me.
I guess the business model is that because it's 'only' £x a month we'll sign-up for that one good film / show they have and then forget about it. I'm certainly guilty of that, we've got Netflix, Paramount, Disney, Prime I'm sure there are others I've forgotten about and still I'll see a promo for something that looks good, only to find it's on another platform I've not heard off before..
Like Sky 10 years ago, there are lots of options, and most of them are crap. Even Netflix, I don't remember anything really interesting on Netflix for a while now.
I signed up to Netflix pretty early on (and ditched it a while back too) - as mentioned it was like the music streaming services where everything was all 'in one place'. Made it easy and convenient.I guess the business model is that because it's 'only' £x a month we'll sign-up for that one good film / show they have and then forget about it. I'm certainly guilty of that, we've got Netflix, Paramount, Disney, Prime I'm sure there are others I've forgotten about and still I'll see a promo for something that looks good, only to find it's on another platform I've not heard off before..
Like Sky 10 years ago, there are lots of options, and most of them are crap. Even Netflix, I don't remember anything really interesting on Netflix for a while now.
Then the others got greedy, decided to pull their content and set up their own and now you have loads of services all fragmented, all wanting their £10-20/mo and none of them with enough decent content to make them worth it. I couldn't tell you who makes most of the shows I've watched over the years and the fact you need a site dedicated to telling you where to find the show you need says it all. Can you imagine that with trying to find your favourite artist?
Whoever mentioned Sony is probably spot on the money - they'll win out on content by having it widely-available wherever the viewer is looking and making it simple to find and watch (and all without having the cost and hassle of building out their own hosting infrastructure etc).
And as mentioned it'll drive people back to piracy; too many services only have a shows with half the seasons for example, I've also known seasons removed from services while people are in the middle of watching them which is bonkers. Piracy is simple, the content's in one place, it's always there and always available - it's that model the media companies need to emulate in order to beat it and they're busy going the other way.
Edited by Funk on Wednesday 1st November 10:49
A tenner a month is pretty good value really, especially as you have the option to switch it on and off with no minimum contract length, etc.
We have Prime (buy a lot from Amazon), Netflix and Spotify. So all in about £30 a month. 20 years ago I probably spent more than that on average each month on CD's and DVD's.
We have Prime (buy a lot from Amazon), Netflix and Spotify. So all in about £30 a month. 20 years ago I probably spent more than that on average each month on CD's and DVD's.
boyse7en said:
It's an interesting situation, and I can't see the current business model continuing very long into the future. I suspect that many of the "smaller" streaming services will have to sign up agreements with the bigger fish - Prime, Netflix, Apple - to provide their content to a reasonable sized audience. If they don' they will just die off, allowing the big boys to licence the content themselves more cheaply.
Personally, I've got Prime, and have cancelled Netflix and Disney because we just weren't watching enough to justify having them. No way will I be signing up to Paramount+, Starz, Britbox, Hulu or whatever just to watch one or two shows.
I actually think Disney may quit streaming, they have had an awful run on box office flops which means no one will really care when they come onto Disney+. Add on that all their direct to stream Marvel shows have dropped off in popularity and quality and so have Star Wars content. Disney have also had a huge drop in subscribers. Personally, I've got Prime, and have cancelled Netflix and Disney because we just weren't watching enough to justify having them. No way will I be signing up to Paramount+, Starz, Britbox, Hulu or whatever just to watch one or two shows.
Great topic and one that's quite relevant to us at the moment. Like others with kids we've slowly built up subscriptions to pretty much everything - Sky, Netflix, Amazon, Paramount, Apple & Disney. However, the kids now get most of their entertainment from gaming, TikTok and Youtube. Having recently reviewed our spending, we've had a cull as the total monthly cost was ridiculous for the amount we actually watched. Netflix, Paramount and Apple have already gone, Disney will go as soon as I work out how the hell I pay for it and our Sky package is about to be stripped to the absolute bare minimum. Going forward we plan to join just one service when they have a few things we want to watch and binge for a month then cancel.
The end result is we'll still watch the programs and movies we want to, but at a significantly reduced cost, it will just require a bit of faff. I suspect lots of others are cancelling and will be using IPTV services instead.
I totally agree that most people would happily pay a single reasonable monthly payment to see everything in one place, I certainly would.
The end result is we'll still watch the programs and movies we want to, but at a significantly reduced cost, it will just require a bit of faff. I suspect lots of others are cancelling and will be using IPTV services instead.
I totally agree that most people would happily pay a single reasonable monthly payment to see everything in one place, I certainly would.
WY86 said:
said:
I totally agree that most people would happily pay a single reasonable monthly payment to see everything in one place, I certainly would.
Wasn’t that sky/virgin in the 2010’s??JQ said:
I totally agree that most people would happily pay a single reasonable monthly payment to see everything in one place, I certainly would.
I can see that becoming an option in the future. Collaborations between different services so you can pay a bit extra to get content from both.Which reminds me, we currently get our Netflix through Sky. Not sure how much it is costing as they keep changing the names and descriptions of all the packages and add-ons.
It's a very interesting topic. My thoughts:
- Netflix showed the model could be popular however they were always cagey with their viewing figures and now it's more obvious why. As with most successful things, once Netflix led the way the issue was it didn't own any of the content and studios realised they could just pull back their content and do it themselves. Cutting out the middle man. This is where you saw Netflix piling money into original content.
- Once other studios started setting up their own platforms it quickly became apparent that having everything available online created an issue. Residuals. This has been a hot topic with the unions recently and is why providers have started pulling things from being available online. Whilst some agreement has been reached with writers the actors are still in negotiation
- Several studios are now potentially looking to offload their streaming platforms as they are major loss makers within the company. The cost of producing original content to draw in subs doesn't equate to the revenue. This could lead to them being swallowed up by one of the more cash rich companies who could potentially absorb a lot of the expense within the company (think Apple or Amazon).
I think Covid certainly accelerated the push to streaming that saw huge growth however studios are now seeing a dilution of the market with everyone setting up their own service and consumers unwilling to subscribe to multiple sources.
The danger I feel is if these services get swallowed up by one or two companies. You're already seeing with Disney and ultimately a lack of competition reduces creativity.
- Netflix showed the model could be popular however they were always cagey with their viewing figures and now it's more obvious why. As with most successful things, once Netflix led the way the issue was it didn't own any of the content and studios realised they could just pull back their content and do it themselves. Cutting out the middle man. This is where you saw Netflix piling money into original content.
- Once other studios started setting up their own platforms it quickly became apparent that having everything available online created an issue. Residuals. This has been a hot topic with the unions recently and is why providers have started pulling things from being available online. Whilst some agreement has been reached with writers the actors are still in negotiation
- Several studios are now potentially looking to offload their streaming platforms as they are major loss makers within the company. The cost of producing original content to draw in subs doesn't equate to the revenue. This could lead to them being swallowed up by one of the more cash rich companies who could potentially absorb a lot of the expense within the company (think Apple or Amazon).
I think Covid certainly accelerated the push to streaming that saw huge growth however studios are now seeing a dilution of the market with everyone setting up their own service and consumers unwilling to subscribe to multiple sources.
The danger I feel is if these services get swallowed up by one or two companies. You're already seeing with Disney and ultimately a lack of competition reduces creativity.
C5_Steve said:
....however they were always cagey with their viewing figures...
It can't be as simple as just 'how many people have watched the show'. For example, there must be a number of people who keep up their Amazon Prime subscription just to watch Jeremy Clarkson's Farm and Grand Tour, and if/when those shows are cancelled then they'd stop their subscription.
Compared to some back catalogue of classic shows like Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, etc that might get more random views but no-one would notice if they disappeared from the offering.
Gassing Station | TV, Film, Streaming & Radio | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff