SVOD: the end of abundance


As competition intensifies and the American domestic market becomes saturated, regardless of the current economic difficulties, the major platforms are in the process of carrying out a major back-to-school cleanup with their programs.

As The Wrap reminds us, after promising almost endless films and series, Netflix, Paramount+, Disney+ or HBO Max are changing their strategy: “The new buzzwords in streaming are curation and discoverability. That means prioritizing higher-quality content, reducing clutter to make it easier to find what you want to watch, and not flooding your service with everything in the hope that the right audience will watch it. find and stay where you are. »
Discoverability has long been ignored by streamers. Yet the subject had been the subject of a conference in 2015 in Montreal “Towards the Peak of Discoverability: Content in the Age of Abundance.” But at the time, the market leaders relied more on the profusion than on the quality of the programmes. 8 years later, a few big tens of billions of dollars swallowed up in more or less successful programs, the platforms are starting to cut into their offer.

The site cites Discovery boss David Zaslav, who said on the company’s August earnings conference call: “It’s not about how much, it’s about whether the content is good. Having content that really resonates with people is much more important than just having lots of content. In other words, at a time when nearly all of the content ever created is available to consumers through a slew of free and paid services, the length, quality, and brands have never been better. important. And that’s what we do best. When it comes to knowing who has the best content, no one is better equipped than us. » Not false, but it means changing the way the biggest platforms work: just look at Netflix’s line-up of films to understand that the world leader in SVOD is still on a volumetric approach.

For now, the purges remain limited but they should accelerate in the coming months: HBO Max recently removed 36 titles, 200 episodes of “Sesame Street” and at least six different original films; Netflix made similar cuts to animated films while ensuring that its level of investment would stabilize around $17 billion per year and Amazon Prime Video recently revamped its user interface to make it easier to find content you are looking for and strengthen its own original programs. Moreover, with the introduction of advertising in the programmes, there is a risk of seeing many programs disappear from the services insofar as the contracts would not have provided for this. And then the time will come when the measurement of program performance will be unified and not simply managed through triumphant press releases or by research firms that do not have access to real statistics, and on that day, the arbitrations will be even more drastic between the good programs which make audience and which bring in money with publicity and those which weigh down the accounts.





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