The streaming business is a simple one. To win, all you need is a never-ending river of spectacular shows and movies that appeal to a massive global audience that spans every demographic, an app that works perfectly on every platform and a great relationship with the other content makers and platforms you’re also trying to destroy. You have to make money even though a lot of your users will share passwords, and god help you if you charge more than about $10 a month. Like I said, simple!
This week’s news included a couple of industry-shaking streaming moves. Discovery announced that when it merges with Warner Bros., it also intends to merge Discovery+ with HBO Max, turning the two services into a formidable combined player. Meanwhile, Amazon’s $8.45 billion purchase of MGM was approved — or, more accurately, half-heartedly waved through — by regulators around the world.
To understand the lay of the streaming land, I called Julia Alexander, a senior strategy analyst at Parrot Analytics and a longtime writer on the streaming wars. She told me there are basically three paths to a successful streaming service. You either have to be so big that everyone subscribes and so good that they never cancel; small and nimble, a la Shudder or Marquee TV; or run by a tech company, like Apple TV+ or Amazon Prime Video. “I always say, we cannot talk about Apple and Amazon in the same way we talk about any other company,” Alexander said. “For them, $8.5 billion is … whatever.”
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