I’ve written enough in this blog about how 2022 saw a mighty sea change in the world of streaming. Streaming World 1.0, or whatever you want to call it, was a vast frontier full of diverse ideas. Did you want to stream for free? We’ve got that. Did you want to pay a lot for a small, tightly curated list of good movies? We’ve got that. Did you just want to put on the same kid flick 75 times in a row? We’ve got that too. Streaming World 1.0 was a vast, Las-Vegas-style buffet of content, all for a price that was too low to be believed.
Using that analogy, Streaming World 2.0 looks to be a school cafeteria that costs $20 a meal.
Enough with the universes already
That’s another subject I’ve covered pretty obsessively in this blog. Not everything has to be a “universe.” Sometimes I just want to sit down to a good story without having to hit Wikipedia 10 times an hour to figure out why I care about a particular character. It’s one thing to reward longtime fans with things that make stories feel richer. It’s another thing to hamstring every show and movie with a heavy complement of baggage that makes it hard to enjoy.
And yet, it seems that streamers, eager to get sure-fire hits, have turned to sequels, tie-ins, and expanded universes to make sure they get viewers’ attention. This strategy worked for theatrical films, until it didn’t. The movie industry, weighed down by multiple sequels every year, has methodically choked off every new idea so that now all that’s left are bankrupt retreads. It seems like streaming is going the same way.
It comes down to the dollars, and it shouldn’t
The big streamers like Netflix and Disney seem to have forgotten that you don’t always have to spend a lot to get a lot. The average gamer has roughly the same computing power that a big graphics house had a decade ago. You, the average reader, have a digital camera that’s better than the one used to shoot the Star Wars prequels, right on your phone.
Knowing all that, it shouldn’t be as expensive as it is to produce good content. Netflix in particular has been spending way too much money on mediocre films, while you can find some really excellent stuff for free on YouTube. I get it… there’s an industry to support. There are all the lighting and sound people, the top-name talent, the promotional apparatus, yep, all that’s true. But good storytelling doesn’t have to cost as much as it has. Certainly, the kind of mediocre storytelling we’re seeing lately shouldn’t cost anywhere near as much as it has.
Spending all that money on shows and movies that don’t perform means higher prices for streaming apps. No one wants that. It means the need for more advertiser support. For sure, no one wants that.
And in a way, this is how I actually kind of agree with Discovery’s David Zaslav. Zaslav is slashing budgets left and right rather than trying to raise prices. I don’t agree with the way it’s being done, but I agree that you don’t need $100 million to make a show good. On the other hand, Zaslav seems to think that cheap shows are automatically good, and that’s not true either. It’s a balance, and he’s too far on one side. I understand it though, because for so long the streaming world was too far on the other side.
When can we get to Streaming World 3.0?
I can’t help thinking that streaming is really going to bomb this year and I know I’ve said that before too. But trying to be optimistic, I have to look at it from the “Goldilocks” perspective. Maybe Streaming World 1.0 was too free with money. Streaming World 2.0 is too careful with money. I’m hoping that we can get to Streaming World 3.0, which could be… just right.
I’m talking about a diverse set of apps, fairly priced, which will let different stories grow and find their audience. I’m talking about shows and movies that tell a mix of new and familiar stories, aimed at people of different ages and cultures. And I’m talking about a place for very expensive productions and a place for very thrifty ones. Some of that stuff will be too pricey for most people, and that’s ok. Some of it will be worthless repetitive dreck. And that’s ok too. Realistically, once it all shakes out, and I hope this will be soon, we’ll have something we can all enjoy.
Until then, my friends, you’re going to find this article series veers a little to the negative. Step one, as some people like to point out, is admitting you have a problem. Well streaming companies, you have a problem. And if this little blog can help you realize that, that’s all the better.
