10 Ways To Save Streaming Services

Until fairly recently, things were looking hugely positive for streaming services. They were starting to win big awards like Emmys and Oscars, and creating more and more mainstream hits. Then 2017 happened. Amazon faced a serious shake-up with the loss of three executives in eight days, and Disney put the wheels in motion to acquire Fox as well as preparing to launch its own streaming service, making 2017 a year of serious changes.

The next few years are going to be a difficult time for streaming. By acquiring Fox, Disney will have a majority stake in Hulu, and control NowTV through majority stakes in Fox and Sky, as well as the permanent distribution rights to thousands of hours of content. Along with this, Disney’s streaming service is due to launch in late 2019, and there are rumours that Apple will buy Netflix by the end of 2018 on the back of repatriating billions of dollars in profit back to the US.

We’ve basically reached a market dominated by billion dollar companies in record time, so if other streaming services are going to stay afloat, there need to be some big changes to how things are done. The days of shrugging off huge financial losses, and giving employees free reign are over, and this is some of what needs to be done if streaming services are going to survive…

This only applies to catch-up services like All4 and BBC iPlayer but the point remains: Stop trying to be Netflix, because it’s not a market you can easily penetrate.

The BBC produces a number of new shows that appear online before getting a TV broadcast in a dead timeslot like midnight on a Friday, while Channel 4 co-produced dark comedy-drama The End Of The F****** World with Netflix, but only broadcast the first episode before sticking the rest on All4, killing the chance for it to become a mainstream TV hit. Three months later, it premiered on Netflix to rave reviews.

The problem is that these websites have been around for years purely as catch-up services. They’re a supplement to television, not an alternative, which means that people won’t spend the evening idly searching through them for new content because that isn’t what they have been for until relatively recently. Plus there’s the fact that iPlayer comes bundled in with the TV licence fee, and All4 is completely free, so users won’t necessarily feel a need to get their money’s worth.

Making these expensive shows that only get a TV broadcast late at night or sometimes not at all is a complete waste of time and money, especially for a commercial broadcaster. Take a lesson from the BBC, who couldn’t even make a Doctor Who spin-off work as an online exclusive, with Class being axed after one series because nobody watched it.