I think it’s pretty much a given that we’ll see a major streaming app fold this year. Streaming took a big hit last year, and while some of that was just coming down from pandemic highs, some of it wasn’t. Last year, the business world realized that sooner or later every company has to actually make money. And, sadly, a lot of these apps weren’t making money. They had become too big to be add-ons to other services, and even if the operating costs were low, the content costs were sky-high.
The streaming industry’s response was to add commercials to practically ever app that didn’t have them. This allowed them to tell customers they had a low-priced tier (which practically no one wants) while jacking up prices on the service itself. Personally I think it would have made more sense to simply rein in content creation costs, but who am I, I suppose.
Someone’s not going to make it
We’ve reached the phase in the evolution of streaming where it’s clear it’s a game of musical chairs. This year, I’m predicting that the music will stop and one major app is going to have nowhere to sit. I don’t think things will be really that bad for the “entitled tier” of Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and Prime Video. But somewhere down in the rest of the apps is the one that will probably close its doors. Chances are it will be met with handwringing from the streaming faithful, while the rest of us will have forgotten it even exists.
Will it be Peacock?
No, it won’t. This would be much too easy of a guess. Picking on Peacock is just unsportsmanlike at this point. They launched at the wrong time, hoping to ride a wave of Olympic fever just as the Olympics were canceled (because of that other fever.) They’ve had precious little original content. Perhaps the only reason for anyone to navigate over there is to watch Universal titles a bit earlier than you could get them otherwise. Even this strategy hasn’t worked, largely due to the lackluster performance of tentpoles like Jurassic World: Dominion. But I think Peacock is here to stay, because Comcast can bundle it with their TV and internet offerings and that will be enough.
The three contenders
The three contenders for app most likely to fail this year? It comes down to three possibles that really don’t have a reason to exist this year. They’re relics of an earlier age, perhaps, that have stayed at the party too long. They’re most likely to get folded into other apps and most folks won’t even remember them in a year or so. Ready? Let’s go.
1. FXNOW
FXNOW launched as a companion to FX, the Fox-run national pay-TV channel. At the time, FX was really focusing on original programming, and a lot of it was very good. The trend at the time was to allow pay-TV customers to use their credentials to stream. It’s still a good idea, but perhaps a bit less important than it was.
FX Networks was sold to Disney, while Fox retained both the News and local channels it had once had. So right away the name became confusing. Disney tried, and succeeded, to port most content over to Hulu, leaving FXNOW without a reason to exist. Today it’s a repository for advertiser-supported versions of old movies.
Except, you could do that with Hulu if you want. FXNOW could go away and Hulu could let pay-TV customers sign in and get limited content with their pay-TV credentials. Paramount+ already does it this way, and Disney should too.
2. Showtime
Speaking of Paramount+, the app has already begun absorbing Showtime content and it already allows customers to sign in with pay-TV credentials and get limited amounts of CBS content. This leaves the standalone Showtime app with no reason to exist. Showtime has had a very, very tightly curated selection of content for a while now. If you know you want something, you’re likely to go to the app. Otherwise you’re likely to forget it exists. That’s not a great recipe for success.
Getting rid of the standalone Showtime app would save resources and would also beef up the Paramount+ app. Paramount+ is a pretty lonely place when there’s no new Star Trek show, at least to me. I guess people also stream Yellowstone spinoffs there but that show isn’t my cup of tea.
3. Epix/MGM+
It’s hard to remember a time when Epix was really relevant as a standalone app. Here’s another case where you have a very very tightly curated selection and it’s hard for people to pay for the app just to get the small amount you get. Epix is now owned by Amazon, through its MGM subsidiary, and it has recently been rebranded as MGM+. I don’t think that’s going to help.
What could happen is that it simply becomes an add-on to the Prime Video app. Prime Video has 3.7 metric craptons of content and pardon me for saying so but crapton is the right word. There’s a lot of stuff, and roughly 6-7 shows and movies are good at any given time. Adding a little Epix content into the mix might brighten up a rather dreary content selection.
Which one will it be?
I’m tempted to say all three will go. But in the end I’m going to say that FXNOW is going to disappear, at least in its current form. It could be reborn as a free ad-supported streamer along the lines of Pluto TV or Tubi. If that happens, the “NOW” part might still make sense but the “FX” name won’t make any sense at all. Probably better to totally rebrand it if you’re going to refocus it.
Still, I think that Disney would be better off putting a free tier back on Hulu. Hulu started as a free app way back when and this would differentiate it from Disney+.
What do you think? Will we lose any of these apps this year? Or will we see something else disappear? Or… could we see streaming as a platform bounce back and dust itself off? Could it recover from the body blows of ’22 and become a darling once again? I guess time will tell.
