**EDIT 28th Dec 2023 I have started to see news articles about the business reality of this situation appearing and a few days ago Paramount and Warner Bro went into merger talks. I write these things well in advance of them popping up on here the main body of this text was written on 21st November 2023 **
Streaming as a business is failing and the business model needs to change.
Imagine if you as a casual music fan and you walk into a music shop.
You would expect to see a new release section and a chart section at the front of the shop then the rest of the shop organised by genre like jazz, blues, rock/metal, rap etc.
Then those sections are organised alphabetically by artist... You can navigate that and it makes sense and you can find what you want.
Now imagine the same shop but it is organised by record companies!
Each section is an a-z of albums available from that company with a chart at the top of each section showing you what are the popular releases by that one record company!
That's the majority of streaming!
It's like a library being organised by publishing houses... It's mental
I fancy watching a good thriller!
But was that thriller made by Paramount Pictures of 20th century fox or MGM?
I don't know I'm just a casual film fan!!
Because Paramount+ does paramount, Disney+ has 20th-century fox and Amazon own MGM now!
Oh, so I can see MGM movies on Amazon Prime?
Nope you have to pay for MGM+
What??
Yip!
OK… there is a new thriller out by David Fincher
Yip exclusive on Netflix
This all sounds expensive!
Well if you were to have Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, MGM+, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, BBCi player, Now movies.
It would cost you £74 a month. £888.00 a year.
That seems a lot... I'll just pay £9.99 for Netflix and I'll watch that new Fincher movie and they must have loads of stuff.
Ok cool
(the next night)
Errrr I have been looking on Netflix and it seems like it's all cake shows and documentaries about murder. I just want to watch some great old movies like we used to get 3 at a time for a week from the video store... Nothing comes up.
Do you know what movie studio made the classics you are thinking of?
(remote gets thrown)
Streaming is not designed for people who love movies its designed for people to consume content. Just watch what's there and then they choose what you should watch next.
Some people are "into movies" and watch 5 films a week but all on Netflix and Disney+ so they won't have seen anything older than the 1960s. Probably...
Using Letterboxd I just checked the availability of the titles listed in the.
“Time out's top 100 British films of all time” for there availability on Netflix and Disney+ in the UK there are only 5 of those 100 films available! 5% over the 2 services.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Monty Pythons The Holy Grail (1975)
Monty Pythons The life of Brian (1979)
Brazil (1985)
Fish Tank (2009)
Nothing off the list is older than the 60's and 60% of them are Directed by Pythons!
Back in the early days of streaming Netflix was a depository of all the movies they could licence it was good I remember it you could watch Disney stuff, old noir movies, classic comedies, world cinema and newish stuff.
Movie studios made movies to release into cinemas.
Cinemas showed movies and made money and paid staff and stuff and Movie studios then got money from the cinemas.
Movie studios then via a distributor released a movie on a disc to rent the distributor made money from the rental shops THEN! Movie studios then got money from the distributor.
Then a distributor would release the movie to buy on disc! business would buy copies of the movie to sell for a profit and the distributor would… Wait for it !
Pay the movie studio money!
So that was the business model for a long time. Movie studios made movies and then every step after that caused money to come back to them.
But with the Internet getting faster Netflix got popular so they had loads and loads of money pouring in every month.
Streaming then killed the physical media rental market and sent the physical media retail market into decline.
What were studios to do?
There were a few options but they have pretty much all chosen the wrong ones in my opinion.
What should have happened is studios continued to develop and make movies predominantly to be released into cinemas… and make money.
Then to replace the rental market rent movies via premium on-demand services like Amazon on the Fire Stick or Apple TV or Roku or whatever. So you can rent the movie for £5 for 48h but you have no physical media cost so rentals are still profitable.
Then the title becomes available to buy via download or physical media.
Then they can license the movie to a streaming service that pays the studio to have it on their service.
This would do a couple of things.
- The movie studios are making and releasing films of a standard and quality that they would think would offer them a return.
- Every stage after release would just be them making money back as long as the movie was good.
- Film fans would know what was going on because right now we don't. Movies are made and go into cinemas for 15 days then pop up on a streaming service, You can read about a movie coming out and it pops up on streaming with no cinema release or vice versa. Movies come out win awards at festivals then seem to never show up on streaming or seem to get a physical media release.... Or a movie can come out in the cinema and streaming on the same day!!
People need to stick to their lanes!!
In a perfect world!!
you would have ALL movie studios making a slate of movies annually FOR CINEMA RELEASE (including Netflix)
Films go into the cinema
Then rent
Then buy
Then stream
Obviously, Netflix may go from cinema to Netflix because that would be their thing.
Then the streaming services would be.
Netflix (being Netflix but no longer viewing cinema as the enemy)
Prime (being prime.. bit of a wacky catch-all)
Disney+ (being a service for Disney to host and curate its vast back catalogue of actual Disney films inc Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel for £5 a month and would be the final destination of Disney movies after the rental window.
A classic movie streaming service perhaps a "Netflix gold"
(That world also have world cinema)
I have no issues with independent streaming services as businesses such as
Shudder (horror specialists)
MUBI (highly curated boutique service)
BFI player
Criterion channel
If movie studios would stop gatekeeping their catalogues they can license the stuff out to streaming services and generate money.
Disney would be earning money licensing out The Twentieth century/searchlight stuff they now own and the stuff Disney made under the name Touchstone Pictures.
So Paramount and MGM and all these services can stop being a financial drain on studios and let studios earn money from their back catalogue rather than lose cash trying to sustain a streaming platform.
They can also curate and release their prestigious titles on 4k disc or Blu-rays with nice packaging.
What I am saying is not baloney it works.
Because Sony Pictures don't own a streaming service they make movies for the cinema then rent and sell them via premium on-demand then license their movies to existing streaming services AND MAKE MONEY DOING IT!
*Correction* Sony does own a streaming service but they own "Crunchyroll" the specialist Anime streaming service. they license and buy Asian animation and put it all in one place for fans to consume and it's a massive success.
Imagine if Shudder could have pretty much all the horror they want and it became the crunchyroll of horror great for studios and consumers.
Maybe my fictional Netflix Gold service would have 65% of the time out top 100 British films of all time and people could easily access great cinema made before 1960!!
Thanks rant over!
