(This article is from the UK, but applies here as well)
Streaming TV is about to get very expensive – here's why
With Disney, Apple and others about to launch their own services, a lot of your favourite shows are likely to vanish behind paywalls. The golden age of streaming is over
Stuart Heritage
The most watched show on US Netflix, by a huge margin, is the US version of The Office. Even though the platform pumps out an absurd amount of original programming – 1,500 hours last year – it turns out that everyone just wants to watch a decade-old sitcom. One report last year said that The Office accounts for 7% all US Netflix viewing.
So, naturally, NBC wants it back. This week, it was announced that Netflix had failed to secure the rights to The Office beyond January 2021. The good news is that it will still be available to watch elsewhere. The bad news is that “elsewhere”, means “the new NBCUniversal streaming platform”.
Is the end of Netflix's golden age in sight?
As a viewer, you are right to feel queasy. The industry-disrupting success of Netflix means that everybody wants a slice of the pie. Right now, things are just about manageable – if you have a TV licence, a Netflix subscription, an Amazon subscription and a Now TV subscription, you are pretty much covered – but things are about to take a turn for the worse.
In November, Disney will launch Disney+, a streaming platform that will not only block off an enormous amount of existing content (Disney films, ABC shows, Marvel and Pixar films, Lucasfilm, The Simpsons and everything else made by 20th Century Fox), but will also offer a range of new scripted Marvel shows that will directly inform the narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Essentially, if you want to understand anything that happens in any Marvel film from this point onwards, you’ll need to splash out on a Disney+ subscription.
Apple will also be entering the streaming market at about the same time, promising new work from Sofia Coppola, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Brie Larson, Damien Chazelle and Steven Spielberg. In the next three years, Apple will spend $4.2bn on original programming, and you won’t get to see any of it if you don’t pay a monthly premium.
There are so many others. NBCUniversal is pulling its shows from Netflix for its own platform. Before long, Friends is likely to disappear behind a new WarnerMedia streaming service – along with Lord of the Rings films, the Harry Potter films, anything based on a DC comic and everything on HBO – that it is believed will cost about £15 a month. In the UK, the BBC and ITV will amalgamate their archives behind a service called BritBox. The former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg is about to launch a platform called Quibi, releasing “snackable” content from Steven Spielberg and others that is designed to be watched on your phone. YouTube is producing more and more original subscription-only content. Facebook is making shows, for crying out loud.
And this sucks. Watching television is about to get very, very expensive. There will be a point where viewers are going to hit their tolerance for monthly subscriptions – I may be able to manage one more service, but only if I unsubscribe from an existing platform – meaning that TV will become more elitist, tiered and fragmented than it already is. There’s a huge difference between not being able to watch everything because there’s too much choice and not being able to watch everything because you don’t have enough money.
Most importantly, we should all remember that this content war is hinged upon a fundamental misunderstanding of viewing habits. Netflix didn’t become a monster because people wanted to watch a specific show; it became a monster because people wanted to watch everything. When its streaming platform launched, people were spending more than £15 just to watch a single season of a show on DVD. So to be able to watch every season of a show – and every season of hundreds of others of shows – for a fiver a month was revolutionary. The whole point of Netflix was that it was a relatively affordable bucket that contained an awful lot of television. That’s why people liked it. That’s why so many people subscribed and continue to subscribe. To pretend otherwise is to miss the point.
That will be a memory soon. The Netflix model was great for viewers, but it couldn’t last. The content creators got greedy and scared, and now they’re determined to drag things back to the bad old ways. They will force everyone to pay for everything separately, and the subscriber base will split, and the providers will have to recoup the money they are spending to take on Netflix – such as the $500m that NBCUniversal spent to get The Office back, the $250m Amazon is spending on a Lord of the Rings series and the $500m that Warner just spent to win the services of JJ Abrams – which means that subscriptions will rise. Make no mistake: we’re the ones likely to get stiffed here.
The golden age of television may be going strong, but the golden age of streaming is dead.
Everyone wants a piece of the stream pie is what this is about. Also as net usage continues to increase more and more data caps will happen which is annoying as all fuck. [Reply]
Originally Posted by sedated:
Subscriptions can be cancelled and picked back up. SlingTV has tiers that, combined, would be over $100. But you pick and choose, cancel one and add another, one month at a time.
It's the exact model that people wanted, and it was always going to cost more, but it's better than the old version of "pay me $150/month and have everything".
That model is great until too many people are doing it, after which they will have to introduce longer term agreements.
Anything that allows consumers to save money while still getting what they want costs the media companies money and will eventually be reacted to. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
Everyone wants a piece of the stream pie is what this is about. Also as net usage continues to increase more and more data caps will happen which is annoying as all ****.
Obviously the cable companies see people eliminating cable TV plans and just using their data, so they're going to find ways to charge more for data through data caps or premium tiered pricing that hits streamers. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Eleazar:
Obviously the cable companies see people eliminating cable TV plans and just using their data, so they're going to find ways to charge more for data through data caps or premium tiered pricing that hits streamers.
This is exactly what is going to happen now that Net Neutrality has been repealed. They will inspect your packets and charge you based on what your doing with your IP. Oh, I see you like facebook and youtube? Please purchase our social media package. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Aspengc8:
This is exactly what is going to happen now that Net Neutrality has been repealed. They will inspect your packets and charge you based on what your doing with your IP. Oh, I see you like facebook and youtube? Please purchase our social media package.
Well if you get a VPN that will help quite a bit, I already use one. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
Well if you get a VPN that will help quite a bit, I already use one.
Your ISP can clearly see when you're using a VPN service. So, they can pull the same shit. Please sign up for the VPN Access Bundle if you would like to continue using a VPN connection. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fish:
Your ISP can clearly see when you're using a VPN service. So, they can pull the same shit. Please sign up for the VPN Access Bundle if you would like to continue using a VPN connection.
Well that's true too.
I'm sure at some point or another we'll all get fucked. I legit only subscribe to netflx/hulu because I have children and teaching them to use Kodi is something I don't want to do. Once they're adults I won't pay for those subs anymore. [Reply]
I work for NBC Universal/ Comcast and Netflix, Amazon, Pluto, Xumo, Youtube, Tubi, Sling, Pandora, Amazon music, I Heart are all free.
Will Disney Apple, ATT all decide to share streaming or are they all going it alone? Do they think because you bring out Banchee II on ATT that I am dropping my provider to watch it or are they going to "bonus" me on price since I am an Xfinity customer?. Would you pay $20 a season for a show or would you by a 1 year susp. to a service to watch 1 show? I won't be changing my service soon as it is a small perk of the job.
I have home security with a few extra cameras for $10 month.
5 Free phone lines with GBs of date at like $12. Gigabite service is a real thing where I live...
These are benefits of having Xfinity Internet at upgraded speed.
Cable TV is only one profit center but it is moving away from "Cable TV as the cash cow towards data. But controlling content from the news to series and sports and blockbuster movies does make you wonder what their next move will be.
I think it will get interesting but original content is going to be the cash cow for streaming co's. but there are ways to access premium materials updated daily through torrents but I doubt it would be looked at in a positive manner by my employer doing so. Even with that I still maintain a wifi only puter for accessing sites and services I like to keep private. [Reply]
