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THE C21 CONTENT TRENDS REPORT: Spring 2023
Channel21 Intern International nat na n atti a tio iion on o n na all | S a Spring pring 2023
Flexible friends The industry pivot to streaming in recent years has seen global players insist on worldwide programme rights, while US studios have withdrawn from licensing. But there are signs these dual dynamics are shifting. By Jonathan Webdale
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t’s been described by some within the industry as the great ‘Netflix correction’ – the point one year ago when the world’s leading streamer shook investors with unexpected subscriber declines and an about-face on introducing advertising. Coming in the wake of a Covid-inflated VoD boom and a string of mega-mergers across film and TV, and at a time of heightened concern over the economy, the effects were immediate. “A handbrake came on to what had been until then this almost unending growth,” says Alastair McKinnon, MD of NBCUniversal-owned Australian prodco Matchbox Pictures. “That seemed to trigger a lot of soulsearching across the industry – people starting to think about the business models, what works, can we keep spending this much money and do we need to?” Among those considering such questions were Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav, at that time only weeks into his role atop the newly created US$43bn company. Elsewhere, perhaps already entertaining the idea of a return to the helm, was supposedly retired Disney CEO Bob Iger. The latter, back in post since November, has embarked upon a heavy cost-cutting exercise as pressure from Wall Street mounts on all those that invested billions in streaming. The picture is the same for Zaslav and Paramount boss Bob Bakish, while Netflix itself has trimmed its headcount and, to some degree, content spending. And amid all this, as McKinnon says, business models have come under scrutiny. The first phase of the streaming revolution was characterised by US studios’ readiness to license TV shows and movies to an upstart they never imagined would have the power to topple them. The second saw Netflix begin to invest in originals as the studios began to realise that it might. The third saw the latter turn off their content licensing taps – not just to Netflix but
Adult animations like The Simpsons perform well on Hulu and Disney+
traditional broadcast partners too as they set about launching their own rivals furnished by in-house product unavailable elsewhere. Netflix began the second phase when it was a USfocused player, willing to strike a deal with House of Cards distributor Sony Pictures Television (SPT), Orange is the New Black maker Lionsgate, or with Hemlock Grove producer Gaumont to allow these parties to sell the series elsewhere. But as its international roll-out and homegrown programming strategy gained momentum, taking global rights to commissions became the default position. These dual dynamics that have shaped the
industry for the past five years are now beginning to shift. Both Zaslav and Iger have signalled a desire to return to licensing and producing content for others, while insiders note that global streamers – read Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV+ – are becoming more flexible in terms of deal-making. Not only are coproductions increasingly de rigueur, but territory-specific acquisitions are in some instances gaining traction over outright commissions. The idea of windowing has once again come to the fore, with Iger, for example, noting at a recent Morgan Stanley conference how well Disney’s adult animations like The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy perform on Hulu and Disney+ despite