Last week I laid out a very simple argument. Streaming (in General) isn’t great for consumers of content right now. This disruption of the old broadcast media costs a lot, satisfies fewer and fewer people, and leaves the disruptors exposed.
Last week (as an example) - I ran a poll on LinkedIn - about 100 people voted
Less than satisfied are at 65% - inconclusive but interesting. More interesting are the facts that are driving Netflix’s shareprice down - a lot:
These stats are from a Bloomberg report and are not “official”, but the reported decline in App-Opens, and declining viewing per subscriber are meaningful.
I’ve had tons of DM’s telling me that the interface is the issue (chasing youtube’s discovery), that they’re churning through a load of old content etc…
My own view, is that the content produced by ALL of the streaming services is
High Production Values - ✅
In general, well acted - ✅
but
Scripts are weaker than they should be - ❌
Series are elongated to draw out the viewing metrics - ❌
Streamers seem to create for a younger audience than us wrinklies - ❌
My own general (nuanced) view is that creative excellence still exists in the small volumes it always has, and that as we become more selective again (this new magic service has lost its magic) - we’re just going back to where we were, and craving more “Diplomats”, more “Department Q’s” and fewer Harland Cohen’s with lazy scripts.
One last thing. Many of us once found new TV shows when chatting at work - “what did you watch last night”… ? My eldest son is currently watching something he’s truly not that into, but the office banter is good the day after so he keeps an eye on it. There’s less of that as we know - WFH etc…
If any of us are in broad agreement we’ll start canceling these quite soon, and search for alternative forms of entertainment. We’re already out out more often seeing people in real life, so perhaps TV has become mortally wounded…