More and more to stream but less and less to watch

According to a new study by Nielsen and Gracenote the number of titles available to streaming consumers has increased by 40% in the past two years.

The “State of Play” study revealed that in the US, Canada, Germany and Mexico the number of TV shows and films available for streaming has risen from 1.7-million titles in 2019 to almost 2.4-million. This follows an industry analysis report in July which marked the first time since the advent of streaming that linear television viewing fell from the top spot of audience TV show consumption preferences.

What this has meant on a practical level is first that the anxiety-inducing digital-era problem of choosing what to watch has become worse. In March 2019 streaming audiences spent on average seven minutes searching for something to watch; in October 2022 that went up to 11 minutes and in June 2023 it reduced slightly to 10 and a half minutes.

With over 2-million titles to choose from, that seems like a manageable amount of time to spend making your decision but the reality is that streaming services have become a dumping ground for a mishmash of mediocre archival titles and depressingly trashy selection of original content that more than ever seems to mimic the worst characteristics of terrestrial and cable TV.

Even worse news for streaming consumers than the descent of platforms into digital versions of the chain video stores of the 1980s and 90s, which became repositories for content that wasn’t deemed good enough for cinema release, is that the nature of the corporate structure and ownership of many streaming platforms is affecting the ability to produce new original content and place it in front of audiences for consideration.

Perhaps you’ve noticed recently that the new titles section of your preferred streamer seems to be filled with substandard genre rehashes from all over the world that you’ve never heard of and seen articles about anticipated, once loudly announced big new shows or older, seemingly reliably watched shows have been cancelled.

This is a direct result of the fact that most streaming sites aren’t owned by companies whose core focus is entertainment and content but rather by conglomerates whose interests are bundled up in a variety of different sectors, of which streaming constitutes one element.

The boards of these companies, like the boards of most companies, are geared towards increasing profit and dividends for shareholders by any means necessary and in the cases of a number of recent content-affecting decisions, this has meant that it’s often more profitable to not stream a show, even after millions of dollars have been spent making it, because the tax benefits outweigh whatever viewership numbers may do for the bottom line.

In May Disney announced a cost-saving plan that saw it remove $1.5bn worth of content to reduce the overall value of the company and therefore reduce its tax bill. It’s epic and previously much-touted show Nautilus, a prequel to Jules Verne’s 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, which the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, is the most recent victim of this tax dodge — in spite of all the time, money and effort spent to realise what seemed like a safe bet successful new show, it’s more profitable for Disney not to release it at all.

The company did the same thing with its adaptation of the best-selling YA series The Spiderwick Chronicles, which though completed, will not be appearing on a streaming platform in your country any time soon. A similar tax break strategy has seen other networks including AMC, TBS and Max dropping or cancelling content that’s been completed but has more value on the shelf than it does on their platforms.

Even though the majority of Nielsen’s 2.4-million titles figure is archival rather than original content, companies like Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery have been slashing their archive offerings in an effort to reduce costs. Shows like Westworld, Raised by Wolves and Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone remake have all been erased from the selection of choices available to streaming viewers in the past year.

The idea of streaming platforms as infinite archives of everything ever made available at the cost of an annual subscription and the press of a button is fast disappearing as companies make decisions that benefit their annual reports at the expense of their viewers. With the added pressures of the current writers and actors’ strikes in Hollywood meaning that many shows are unable to continue production until the disputes are resolved, things are, in spite of the seeming positives of Nielsen’s report, not looking good for streamers or streamer users.

As long as bottom lines continue to be prioritised at any cost, the future for streaming choices seems to be headed for the kind of corporatised desperation that turned so many people off terrestrial television in the first place: increased prices for subscriptions to offerings that in spite of their promise offer less of what you actually want to watch; and pushes towards new lower-priced plans full of advertising interruptions, which offer companies a more reliable source of direct income from subscribers over and above their subscription fees.

The bottom line is that streaming is facing its biggest identity crisis yet and what the platforms decide to do in response will either turn them into the promised visions of the future of television they’ve advertised themselves as, or just another frustratingly bigger version of the terrestrial model they’re supposed to be upending.