Output of Streaming Originals Dips Nearly 20% in 2024 as the Market Settles into a New Normal
Output of Streaming Originals Dips Nearly 20% in 2024 as the Market Settles into a New Normal
Streamers aren’t taking as many gambles on new titles these days as the demand for profits has changed operating procedures across the board.
Even as new seasons of “House of the Dragon” and “The Bear” make their streaming debuts in the month of June, it’s hard not to notice that the release schedule has seemed a little barren lately. It’s been hard to quantify just how barren the slate has been until now, however. A new report from Variety, which cites data collected from Luminate Film & TV which shows that the output of original TV shows from on-demand streaming services was down nearly 20% year-over-year in the first half of 2024. Nearly all on-demand streamers have been affected, and while the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023 surely played a part, the reason for these declines is much more closely related to the state of the streaming industry as a whole.
Key Details:
- In the first half of 2024, 367 series premieres or new season releases have occurred on top streamers, as compared to 452 in 2023.
- New Disney+ releases plummeted by 54% as the streamer tries to re-energize some of its most popular franchises.
- The need to become profitable has left streamers less willing to take chances on content, even as they continue to raise prices.
The data compiled by Variety and Luminate shows that collectively, the top eight streaming services on the market — Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock and Apple TV+ — released 367 new TV seasons in the first half of 2024. That’s down by almost 100 titles from the first half of 2023, which saw 452 new releases.
The biggest declines occurred at Disney+ and Paramount+, both of which are trying to handle a difficult transition to digital-first entertainment as the cable channels owned by their respective parent companies lose viewers at an accelerating rate. So far in 2024, Disney+ has released 11 new seasons of TV, which is down 54% from the 24 titles it released in H1 2023. Paramount+’s output has declined by 35%, as the service has released 20 new seasons this year, as compared to 31 in the first half of last year.
Part of this decline is by design for Disney, which has committed to releasing fewer streaming titles from the Marvel franchise as it pivots to a quality-over-quantity approach. Paramount has been in at the center of merger and acquisition talks for months, and while it now appears that it may not find a buyer any time soon, it has likely been careful not to rock its streaming boat with a show that bombs while it’s being evaluated for potential takeover.
It’s not just Disney+ and Paramount+ either; every streamer except Max and Peacock have put out fewer new shows to start 2024 than they did in 2023. There’s no question that some of this is a hangover effect from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes; intransigence from studio heads at the demands of union leaders led productions to shut down for months last year, and many are just now getting back on schedule.
Why Audiences Shouldn’t Expect a Big Rebound for Release Schedules Going Forward
The simple fact of the matter is that ten, or even five years ago, streaming providers were burning through cash like it was going out of style. In a large part this is because they were rewarded for doing so; Wall Street didn’t have much of a problem with streaming services losing gobs of money every quarter, so long as they continued to add meaningful numbers of customers.
But the market shifted in 2022 and 2023, and streaming services had to start standing on their own feet as revenue generators. In large part, that’s because of the decline of pay-TV. Most streaming services are owned by media companies that also own cable and broadcast networks, as well as movie studios. But cable channels are losing viewers by the hour thanks to cord cutting, and movie theater chains are still waiting for pre-pandemic crowds to come back, a prospect that looks less and less likely with each passing year. In short, providers need their streaming services to become profitable for the sake of their overall businesses, and that has led to executives making much more selective decisions about which streaming titles get greenlit.
Many streamers are turning the corner of profitability now, such as Max, Disney+ and Hulu. But others like Peacock and Paramount+ are just hitting peak loss, and will take several more quarters before they’re in the black. Content pullbacks aren’t the only measures streamers are turning to in order to maximize profits, either; price increases and password-sharing crackdowns are important cogs in the machine as well, and there have been plenty of both to go around in the past year.
The happy-go-lucky days of $15 billion+ content budgets and ad-free plans for less than $10 per month are over in the streaming world. There’s money to be made, but only by using fiscal discipline, and that will continue to add up to fewer new originals and higher prices for customers as cable and satellite continue to fade into obscurity.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”