Image: Twin Peaks, SHOWTIME
One of the pivotal questions in the streaming industry is how much platforms depend on new releases to attract and retain audiences, particularly following the 2023 strike, which halted the release of new scripted content for several months, when platforms leaned on legacy TV shows and unscripted content to keeps audiences’ engagement.
Using Parrot Analytics’ Content Panorama, we can break down each platform's TV catalog by how long ago a show has released new episodes, providing insights on how much each platform relies on new content, whether in the form of new seasons or new shows released. Most of the main SVOD platform catalogs are composed of shows that released an episode 1 to 5 years ago. This share is higher for Apple TV+ and Netflix, making up more than half of each platform's TV catalog. In contrast, Peacock and Paramount+ have lower shares of these titles, less than a third of shows available.
These two platforms have the highest share of shows that haven’t released a new show in 10 years, more than one-quarter of the catalog, followed closely by Disney+ (23.1%). These are typically shows that have definitively concluded and will not be revived. For example, Paramount+ hosts classic linear shows like Twin Peaks and the many shows in the Star Trek franchise, as well as classic Nickelodeon content such as 2007’s Avatar: The Last Airbender and iCarly.
Nostalgia plays a crucial role in these platforms and the presence of beloved old linear shows in their catalog helps boost retention. For instance, Peacock’s has older sitcoms and comedies such as House, That ‘70s Show and Scrubs, which still have an engaged fan base; and Disney+ has Home Improvement and old cartoons like Duck Tales (1987) and 1990’s The Gummi Bears.
New content, which garners most of the attention from the media, varies considerably between platforms. 20.0% of the shows on the Apple TV+ catalog premiered or released a new season in the last 6 months, and another 21.3% of these in the period between 6 and 12 months ago. For Netflix, the platform with the lowest share of new TV content, these shares are 10.3% and 9.1%.
Content Panorama also provides insight into these SVOD movie catalogs. Comparing the two largest movie catalogs, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, it becomes evident that both platforms rely largely on movies released more than 5 years ago. However, Prime Video has a much larger share, 74.0%, than Netflix (52.0%). On the other hand, almost a quarter of movies available on Netflix released between 1 and 3 years, almost twice as Prime Video. This period, which comprises movies released between the first quarters of 2021 and 2023, was marked by a surge in the number of Netflix movies released straight to the platform.
These numbers only scratch the surface of the topic. Digging a little deeper into this topic, streaming platforms may be interested in answering the follow-up questions like:
- How are other platforms combining new seasons and new series releases to engage audiences?
- Are any of these categories over or underperforming in terms of audience demand for each catalog when compared to the number of titles?
- How do other platforms’ movie catalogs, especially those with a big movie studio behind them, compare to Netflix and Amazon in terms of content age?
