The World Ahead 2022
The video-streaming battle is going global
But in some territories, streamers are forming alliances
AFTER COVID-19 forced directors everywhere to shout “Cut!”, new television series were thin on the ground in 2021. But with filming back under way, viewers will be spoilt for choice in 2022. Netflix, the world’s leading video-streamer, will launch the fourth season of its sci-fi hit, “Stranger Things”. Amazon Prime Video, the online retailer’s entertainment arm, will unveil a lavish “Lord of the Rings” spin-off which cost nearly half a billion dollars to make.
These are among the next salvos in the competition for eyeballs known as the streaming wars, in which the entertainment giants of Hollywood and Silicon Valley vie to outspend each other on content. Yet in much of the world the “wars” have been limited to two or three combatants. Netflix and Amazon are everywhere. Apple TV+, the tech firm’s video venture, is in more than 100 countries. The rest are relative works in progress.
In 2022 that will change, as Hollywood’s other streamers pile into new markets. International expansion offers them a chance to sign up tens of millions of new customers and swell their war chests. But the battle for subscribers will be harder than at home.
In some territories, streaming wars are giving way to streaming alliances
Disney, Hollywood’s biggest studio, has been pushing deeper into Asia, launching its Disney+ service most recently in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea (the setting for “Squid Game”, Netflix’s global smash-hit in 2021). Peacock, the streaming platform of NBC-Universal, part of the Comcast cable empire, has just begun its roll-out in Europe, as has HBO Max, part of WarnerMedia. Discovery+, which serves up light factual entertainment, recently set up shop in Brazil, Canada and the Philippines.
The year ahead will see further expansion. Disney+ plans launches in eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Paramount+, a streamer owned by ViacomCBS, will arrive in Europe’s largest markets. HBO Max, which has some of America’s most valuable TV, from “Game of Thrones” to “Succession”, will expand its footprint in Europe, too.
Hollywood will find foreigners a tough crowd. Emerging markets mean lower revenues: Disney+ makes less than $1 a month from subscribers in India. Even in rich countries, budgets are lower than in America. The average American cable bill comes to nearly $100 a month, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm. In Britain the equivalent is half that. And whereas Americans are ditching their overpriced cable packages in record numbers, freeing spending power for streaming, Europeans seem to be much more attached to their pay-TV subscriptions.
There are also questions about rights. Some studios, like Disney, are putting all their films and shows on their own streaming service. But others still have licensing obligations to different distributors. hbo Max has yet to announce a launch date in some big European countries, including Britain, where the rights to its most popular programmes are held by Sky, a satellite broadcaster owned by Comcast.
The difficulty of cracking these markets is one reason why streaming wars are giving way to streaming alliances. Discovery and WarnerMedia hope to complete their proposed merger in 2022, to help them take on Netflix. Comcast and ViacomCBS, whose streaming platforms, Peacock and Paramount+, compete with each other in America, have agreed to co-operate internationally. Their output will be combined into yet another streaming service, called SkyShowtime, which will launch in Europe in 2022. There will be plenty on TV in the year ahead. The challenge will be working out what to watch, and on which platform.
Tom Wainwright: Media editor, The Economist■
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2022 under the headline “Streaming’s global fight”