Board 8 > Is Peak TV killing TV?

Topic List
Page List: 1
scarletspeed7
12/31/17 2:11:00 PM
#1:


I've been reading some articles this week about the glut of content being created thanks to the growth of the Netflix bubble.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/08/peak-tv-fx-scripted-series-tally-2017-1201865111/
http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/too-many-shows-peak-tv-overwhelms-viewers-survey-finds-1202606620/

It's crazy to think that the price to create an hour of scripted drama has doubled in the last few years, but furthermore Netflix said in October it plans to spend up to $8 billion on content next year. Which is to say a content bubble may be formingso long as Netflix keeps driving up the prices.

With Disney planning to vacate Netflix for its own streaming service within the next couple years, and CBS pushing its service, HBO putting a premium on its side... I really wonder if there is going to be a burst that kills television and streaming as we know it. Prices will rise to continue funding the creation of content so streaming services can have the edge and advantage over one another, and networks are fumbling to keep up while losing live audiences.

I'm very curious because while an increase in the need for content allows new voices to reach audiences, it also gluts the market. It dilutes the potential pool for viewers. And it's weird to think that a show is successful if it can keep three million viewers. Ten to fifteen years ago, that number would be an immediate cancellation on one of the Big Four networks.
---
"Reading would be your friend." ~Dave Meltzer
... Copied to Clipboard!
SaveEstelle
12/31/17 2:18:11 PM
#2:


I ask myself this very question from time to time. I think what we're going to see is the inevitable zit-popping of many of these startup streamers -- we're already seeing it with a few of them in the last two years, and it will continue happening so long as new niche services like Shudder continue sprouting up. Consumers can only get stretched so far and there is already a ton of negativity swirling around society across the many younger people who cut the cord and switched to Netflix on the (inevitably short-lived) premise that it would just have "everything" and that would be that.

We saw it when they grumbled over "having" to get Hulu. We saw it with the grumbling over Amazon. We see it with the grumbling of Star Trek fans over the -- apparently -- not-so-terribly-unsuccessful CBS All Access. We'll continue seeing it through niche portals like CW Seed. We will absolutely see it with The Mouse, or Disney Vault, or whatever they decide to call it. (But that won't matter one bit; that streamer is destined for success, let's be real.)

At a certain point, it's going to hit a paywall that up-and-comers can't match, because the smaller-fry streaming services just won't be able to afford anywhere near what Netflix and Amazon etc are tossing into their original programming budgets, and the allure of "premium" will fade, and we'll be left with something akin to the network TV prime Big Four. (I think it'll be closer to a Big Eight, seeing as basic cable is taking repeated beatings over this as well; a 0.6 is ample legroom to survive on most cable networks now -- can you imagine the Save Farscape campaign in that environment? We wouldn't have gotten a miniseries; we'd have never had to worry. A 1.4 series low. Good grief, they'd have renewed it for three more seasons!)

So no, I don't think streaming is going to die anytime remotely soon. I think it will continually expand until ~2020 or so and then it will visibly contract. I think by 2025 we'll have that Big Eight, and everyone will have that Big Eight, and there will be packaged deals aplenty (we see them already) that combine them all into the must-haves. And somewhere along the way, some late-blooming millennial philosophers will come along and say, "wait, I'm watching these old 90s sitcoms and all these characters are commiserating that there are 700 channels and nothing to watch. Why do I only have 8?"
---
"Piece of cake!"
"We're good to go!"
... Copied to Clipboard!
scarletspeed7
12/31/17 2:27:28 PM
#3:


Interesting that you're pitching it as a Big Eight, because at that point you'll be paying the same amount for a decent cable package now as for 8 Netflix-costing streaming services. And do you just go back to cable at that point? Can networks and cable unite and change the technology so that the convenience is there for them re-entice viewers back to TV?

My biggest question is, what is the cost a content provider will pay for one viewer? Because that's the value that will determine where shows go from here. Rising costs, more shows, diluted viewer pool... it makes me wonder if Twin Peaks was a commercial success or not, for example.
---
"Reading would be your friend." ~Dave Meltzer
... Copied to Clipboard!
SaveEstelle
12/31/17 2:35:20 PM
#4:


scarletspeed7 posted...
Interesting that you're pitching it as a Big Eight, because at that point you'll be paying the same amount for a decent cable package now as for 8 Netflix-costing streaming services.


Yep. I feel this is exactly where we're headed.

And do you just go back to cable at that point? Can networks and cable unite and change the technology so that the convenience is there for them re-entice viewers back to TV?


Oh, they can try, and I don't doubt that they might, but network and cable have bled so many 18-49ers that I just don't see it happening. Once a technology concept is construed as archaic and out-of-vogue, I'm not sure there's much historical precedent for it bouncing back in a big enough way for such attempts to be successful. I mean, sure, you've got stuff like the meteoric renaissance of vinyl. But this is the kind of dish where a cable network would want and need millions of people to flock back, and there's just so much apathy from younger people toward traditional TV setups now.

Granted, there are still millions of 'em who haven't cut any cords, but that pool is diminishing year after year, and I just don't know, man. We're attuned to this convenience of choosing what to watch ourselves, of having the option to set up a queue, or to binge something the whole way through on a dreary Sunday. We're attuned to a lack of commercials. This is where we're headed and those are things that cable and network can't really offer. I don't see it happening.

My biggest question is, what is the cost a content provider will pay for one viewer? Because that's the value that will determine where shows go from here. Rising costs, more shows, diluted viewer pool... it makes me wonder if Twin Peaks was a commercial success or not, for example.


I'm not sure about Twin Peaks. Its live viewership was pretty bad but it supposedly drove subscriptions to historic degree. What is historic degree, though? It's kind of the big question, you know? It's why I wasn't really drinking the Kool-Aid on Star Trek: Discovery being particularly commercially successful when CBS was saying it drove subscriptions to the same ballpark. Where are the numbers, you know? Then I saw the actual numbers through insider stuff and they seemed... fine? It wasn't until Netflix's international Most Watched 2017 list started circulating and Discovery ranked in one of the lists that I was like, "alright, yeah, you've done alright here."

How much was spent to get there, however? How much can continually be tossed into Star Trek: Discovery to keep that particular set of viewers comfortable? The same applies to Twin Peaks. (I think. I don't know. I don't follow it. Is it supposed to be coming back? Is the jury still out? "Limited Series" is often a convenient way of covering up one's possible failures if a show doesn't hit a certain financial ceiling; I have no doubt they'll bring it back if it's doing well enough to justify the action.)
---
"Piece of cake!"
"We're good to go!"
... Copied to Clipboard!
scarletspeed7
12/31/17 2:42:08 PM
#5:


SaveEstelle posted...
It's why I wasn't really drinking the Kool-Aid on Star Trek: Discovery being particularly commercially successful when CBS was saying it drove subscriptions to the same ballpark. Where are the numbers, you know? Then I saw the actual numbers through insider stuff and they seemed... fine? It wasn't until Netflix's international Most Watched 2017 list started circulating and Discovery ranked in one of the lists that I was like, "alright, yeah, you've done alright here."

Yeah, but what's more successful: ST:D or The Orville? Because Netflix's international viewership included, STD's expenses HAVE to dwarf Orville considerably. And at the same time, The Orville apparently pulled a better rating in the demo, and it remained on TV which will bolster FOX considerably given their lack of ratings in, well, anything. STD drew record sign-ups, but it only had competition from what? The Good Fight? A show that was primed at an audience less likely to sign-up for streaming services (because they're old)?

SaveEstelle posted...
How much was spent to get there, however? How much can continually be tossed into Star Trek: Discovery to keep that particular set of viewers comfortable?

Has to be the big question now.

SaveEstelle posted...
The same applies to Twin Peaks. (I think. I don't know. I don't follow it. Is it supposed to be coming back? Is the jury still out? "Limited Series" is often a convenient way of covering up one's possible failures if a show doesn't hit a certain financial ceiling; I have no doubt they'll bring it back if it's doing well enough to justify the action.)

It was supposed to be a limited series from its initial announcement. It certainly generated an inordinate amount of buzz for its viewership, so I imagine that its sign-up numbers were pretty strong as well. In fact, I seem to remember that Twin Peaks also drew record sign-ups for Showtime. So maybe it paid for itself.
---
"Reading would be your friend." ~Dave Meltzer
... Copied to Clipboard!
Topic List
Page List: 1