Why Are Streaming Services Screwing Up a Good Thing?

83% of US adults use streaming services, far exceeding the number of cable subscribers.

Binging has grown to be completely commonplace now as 60% of audiences 18-34 regularly watch shows this way.

Netflix, the godfather of all streamers, now generates more internet traffic than Facebook.

So …

Why are streaming services screwing up a good thing?

We know many of the obvious answers. There are simply too many of them saturating the markets these days. It’s hard for any network or streamer to continually offer up enough fresh, superb content for a continually hungry audience. Everything is super expensive these days and production costs have been wildly out of control for decades now. And the sluggish economy and world government instability isn’t helping matter either as more folks are tightening their belts and hanging onto their disposable income allowances than ever before.

Still, there are some rather obvious issues contributing to the problem as well, even if they don’t get nearly as much ink as those other factors. The good news about some of these other clear issues is that they are easily within grasp of the streamers to fix.

As everyone knows, the key to telling a joke is timing. So, too, it’s the key to holding onto an audience as well.

Let me start with a fantastic success story for Netflix—that of "Wednesday" three years ago. It was a huge international hit, made Jenna Ortega into a star and household name, and won a slew of Emmy awards and placed on hundreds of critics Best of 2022 lists. But then the show took almost three years to return to the streamer with its second season and, despite even better hosannahs from Rotten Tomatoes’ certified critics, the ratings dropped by nearly half. Yep, a 43% decrease in viewership.

Could the long delay between the first and second season have anything to do with that? Does Wednesday break out in hives wearing color?

Still, Netflix is making a similar mistake with how they’re handling the second season of another one of their big hits "Black Doves." It premiered last December to rave reviews and big ratings, spending six weeks in global top 10 viewership and logging over 45.3 million completed views. Netflix even knew they had a hit on their hands when they decided to greenlight the second season in August, almost three months before the show would premiere. Additionally, they even created a special promo in early January of this year, showing stars Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw toasting their success in a pub while promising to start shooting the new season soon.

Nine months later, and the show just started to shoot in mid-October. The second season of "Black Doves" will drop likely in the late spring or early summer of next year.

So, what happened there? Why weren’t scripts being written with due haste starting in August? Look, no one wants to push the showrunner and writers to create an inferior second season, but if regular network television and basic cable have been able to deliver new seasons with only six months in between, why can’t streamers? It’s the norm still for most television programs, and I dare say, audiences are used to it and certainly don’t want to wait long periods of time between continuing stories being told on the small screen.

Even HBO, Showtime, and AMC, back in the day outside of "The Sopranos" and "Mad Men," were quite diligent about returning series in fathomable time frames. Maybe it’s arrogance, actors’ availability, or C-suite hubris, but a show that comes out in December should have its second series on air by the following December. Duh.

Some shows like "Slow Horses" on Apple TV+ seem more than capable of a quick turn-around. They don’t want to lose momentum or viewers. Perhaps, because "Slow Horses" is a co-production between Sony and the British/Australian production company See-Saw Films, it’s able to build on its success without making unseemly sacrifices in quality or scheduling, but the show is building steam with each subsequent season because of it.

The series just concluded the fifth season, even ending with an extensive preview of the sixth season already in the can. Fulfilling the needs of an audience so respectively clearly helps the show stay in the conversation, not to mention reap more positive press, critical notice, and a burgeoning awards season presence, too.

Scheduling is just one factor, streamers have total say over. Another is how they break down costs versus what they’re offering. Constant rate increases damage trust with an audience, as does figuring out what a streamer is creating versus just buying.

This is especially confusing as movies and shows jump about so one doesn’t know what streamer is offering what, when or where. Amazon purchase the rights to the James Bond movies not long ago and are getting a ton of press as they figure out whom to cast as 007, but their track record with other offerings can get trying. Their Prime Video creates such hit shows as "Reacher" and "Invincible," yet other shows they’re creating for their off hoots like Shudder or Britbox, not nearly as much.

So many shows, so little time.

Peacock does the same, what with Paramount and limited tastes from everyone from NBC to Disney now filling their dance card. Disney, too, has struggled with their many offerings and just where they’ll show up or how any of it is actually bundled from month to month.

This all creates a lot of confusion for consumers, and nobody wants to have to pay that close of attention to costs, offerings, and increases on a weekly or monthly basis.

It looks like Disney is going to finally fold all of Hulu under their Disney banner, but just as they solve one problem, they help create another. Not only did their Jimmy Kimmel debacle lose them an estimated 3 million subscribers in one week before the nighttime talk show host was returned to the air, but now they’re fighting with YouTube. In late October, Disney clips were removed from YouTube due to a contract dispute. This prevents millions of YouTube viewers, and potential Disney streaming viewers, from access to major networks that Disney owns like ABC, ESPN, and FX. And for a company that has lost an estimated 11 billion on streaming since 2019, none of that is a good look.

Perhaps streamers should take a page from food delivery systems that started hemorrhaging with their offerings, as well as costs, several years ago. These days, be it DoorDash, UberEATS, or Grubhub, most offer multiple daily deals or even free items to keep customers coming back.

For example, to get you up to a $20 purchase on UberEATS, they may give away a BOGO free breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s. Yes, purchasing more is still doling out more, even with a free feature, but it is giving you a perk, a business practice that might help streamers more.

Perhaps viewers could get early access to a movie or show each month? Maybe there are co-op deals to be had with those food delivery services. Could Netflix do a “Netflix and Chill” promotion with an ice cream outlet like Baskin-Robbins? Maybe they have already. Or maybe they could give such a deal a try.

Then, there is the whole matter of how much a streamer will spend on a film versus a TV show, let alone the release of such things. Budgeting for everything everywhere all at once must be a Herculean task for a streamer head and knowing how to budget all such things, including marketing efforts for them all, must just bleed cash. And such losses trickle down and damage every part of a company.

Now, moviemakers are generally going to want a theatrical release before their baby is relegated to the smaller screen, even if a Netflix or Amazon is paying for the entirety of its production. But such blurred lines can create confusion in the marketplace as many viewers will wonder why they should bother to see a film in the theaters when it will end up streaming in 2-3 months.

It also doesn’t help the movie industry as many films now don’t feel big enough when they are in theaters knowing that they’re destined for streaming in mere weeks. Both sides lose money because the product feels ill-defined. Is it a floor wax? Is it a dessert topping? It’s both. (For those of you readers who get that reference, bravo old-timers!) But make no mistake, such films being released on streaming services within weeks too often feel like a version of no man’s land, especially if the streamer created it.

But here’s the good news …

The fact is that the average global consumer spends 4.2 hours daily consuming streaming content, so whatever the streamers can do to keep such a good thing going would behoove them to do so. Even if it means not instantly turning a profit.

The saying goes that in business to make a dollar; you need to spend a dollar. Well, streamers seem to too often forget such modus operandi. They shouldn’t be afraid to spend well to draw attention to their products, nor should they be weary to offer deals to attract and build an audience.

Yet, with quarterly reports staring down every CEO of every streaming service these days, their times to make decisions and see them pay off must feel like an ever-tightening window. And my guess is that quality content is often the first place they may feel the urge to cut.

Less shows, less movies, less budgeting for whatever is being produced.

Yet, as a certified RottenTomatoes.com film critic, let alone a fan, I believe that the number one thing that streamers can do to better their predicaments is to ensure that the content quality always comes first.

It’s the one thing they have control over.

So, greenlight daring material, buy more interesting product even if it doesn’t look like a tentpole, and build your reputation by being stellar. The Tiffany Network, FX, Netflix … it’s how they all started. They built great content and the audiences showed up. And it’s never too late to apply such goals to what is on your roster. You can boast of all your old movies and shows you’re offering, but more often than not these days, it is the streamer’s original productions that define their brand and success story.

Thus, to the matter of worthy content, permit me to offer up the example of the recently dropped third season of "The Diplomat" on Netflix. It received its best reviews yet—97% on RT at present—and the buzz online has been building with gusto as more people are discovering the show. I don’t recall a significant PR push on the third season, but no matter, the show’s quality speaks volumes that even a great ad campaign cannot. And I think a shift in its content made the difference and may be just the sort of example that streamers should always be striving for.

"The Diplomat" became even better three seasons in, because the show wanted to keep improving and made some tough decisions to do so. Before the third season, the show was a heady, but often lurid mix of palace intrigue and bedroom shenanigans. The two lead characters—Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), the beleaguered American ambassador to the UK, and her savvy but shifty hubby Hal (Rufus Sewell) tried to hold power while being distracted by various affairs not of state.

This season, however, the show’s emphasis shifted to focusing on political gamesmanship when Hal became the VP to the prickly POTUS (Allison Janney) and the two of them may have just started WWIII with Russia, or of all people, our British ally in the temperamental PM (Rory Kinnear) who’s been such a foil for Kate. Show creator and showrunner Deborah Cahn learned well from her time as a writer on "The West Wing" and indeed, focusing more of the show on the politics rather than the strange bedfellows paid off handsomely.

It may sound obvious to have to preach, but every creator and every streamer should always be asking, “How can we do better?”

And it always starts with what you’re producing.

Content should be and must always be a streamer’s top priority. Not the shareholders, not the ledger sheets. And no streamers should ever rest on their laurels or be satisfied with “good enough.”

Of course, any business must wrestle with competition and various problems that will arise in the marketplace and potentially upend their bottom-line, but for streamers, they can start being even more successful by ensuring that most of the problems showing up at their doorstep are not self-made.

My best advice is to create shows and films audiences truly want to see. Not what sold last year. Or has 60 million is star salaries before the first day of filming begins. No, I’m talking about scripts that feel different, fresh, smart, and eminently relatable if possible. (Sorry, but there are too many cops, spies and superheroes …still.) Sure, stars are important, but not worth half the budget anymore.

Start by telling better stories. If you build that, I bet they will come. Audiences, too.

Oh, and never let more than a year lapse between seasons. God created the world in six days. You’d think Tim Burton could do it in 12 months.

*Featured image created by Jeffrey York