Two years ago, the online video streaming services competed for volume of titles and over the same potential users. The dinner table discussion over “Netflix vs. Hulu vs. Amazon” focused on which service offered the most shows and best movies for the price point. This year, the conversation has changed as Netflix has publicly shifted the way they’re programming the service. Now with more subscribers than HBO and a successful $100 million original TV series, House of Cards, in their repertoire ($3.6 million per episode), the service has stated that their main competitor is now HBO, not iTunes, Hulu or other internet streaming services. Most recently Netflix allowed 1,800 titles to expire, telling Mashable that it is working towards licensing titles “on an exclusive basis” and that their goal is to be an “expert programmer” and not a “broad distributor.” This strategy paves the way for a future where Netflix can more easily co-exist with other subscription services.
Consumers were hoping an $8/mo subscription could replace their cable bill (just as a $10/month subscription provides them with access to virtually 100% of music available). Unfortunately for consumers, $8/month will always only give us a small subset of premium video content. The dust is starting to settle and each service is presenting its unique value to the viewer in the marketplace. Netflix will increasingly be the place to go for their exclusive series (next up this month: Arrested Development) and for recently released movies — the same value consumers see in HBO. Hulu (owned by the major networks) will be your go-to for network TV series, indie films, classics and documentaries (what Netflix used to be). I’d expect old seasons of TV series to fall off Netflix over time as Hulu increasingly takes over this role in the market. The sports leagues have their own subscription options and many others will enter the market and find their niche. Popular music subscription service, Spotify, will supposedly be entering the video streaming market. Amazon Prime has launched Amazon Studios to start producing original series for release through Amazon Prime.
So just how many of these services would you have to subscribe to in the future to replace your cable TV package? If you’re spending $120 on your cable bill, odds are $50 of that is for your internet and $70 is for your TV package. To replace your TV package you would have to subscribe to 7 or 8 services to match the current amount you spend on TV. If this is the future, then there is room in the market for Hulu to co-exist with Netflix and others, just as cable networks can co-exist and are not necessarily competing for the same viewer. If you’re looking to cut your monthly TV budget and you’re hoping (legal) internet streaming is the solution, then you’ll have to decide what types of movies and shows you’re willing to lose. It will become increasingly clear over the next year which services are right for you as they will inevitably follow the footsteps of TV networks and program their services for a selected viewer demographic rather than the masses.
As spring has sprung, The Orchard has proven to be a truly ripe ground for growing the digital life of a wide array of film and video content. In the past two months, our releases have ranged from an award-winning documentary about the worst industrial disaster in history, Bhopali, to the adrenaline-fuelled wakeboarding extravaganza, Lipsmack.
From jam band lovers to Scandinavian-loving cinephiles, we released something for everyone. Our Orchard Sports team pushed out films for racecar aficionados: British Rally Championship Review 2011; snowmobilers: Slednecks 14; extreme skiiers: Action Jackson; off-road moto riders: What !s; mountain bikers: Trailnotes; and of course, those always enthusastic BMX-ers: Props BMX: Owned and Props BMX: Best of 2010, among many others.
For the cinephiles favoring fiction films, our releases were international — the dark Swedish thriller The Ape; the Danish-U.S. romantic comedy Love at First Hiccup; and U.S. festival darling Strings, a thought-provoking, twist-heavy thriller with echoes of Christopher Nolan’s early films.
For those who prefer a dose of reality, our documentary content was equally rich. Aside from the aforemented Bhopali, The Orchard released For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Tree of Liberty, the subject of which is self-explanatory, and the award-winning look at Jamaica’s rising underground reggae stars, RiseUp, was prominently featured on Hulu, joining the ranks of other Orchard-released docs like Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary and — perfect for an election year – The Nine Lives of Marion Barry.
And of course, we wouldn’t be The Orchard if we didn’t offer music films. Not one, but six Widespread Panic concert films are now on iTunes, beginning with Widespread Panic: Wood Tour at Atlanta, GA’s The Tabernacle on January 27, 2012. Now that’s a mouthful.
You’d think we’d take a break after all this releasing, but with the quality of films choosing The Orchard for their digital distribution partner, we just can’t stop the momentum. Over the summer, expect everything from documentaries from Cannes-winning Israeli auteurs to coming-of-age Canadian comedies.
In an declaration of war on our intake of Vitamin D, Hulu has announced three original shows and seven exclusives slated to air this summer. The half-hour originals include: Spoilers, a movie review show hosted by Kevin Smith; Up to Speed, a travel series hosted by Timothy “Speed” Levitch; and We Got Next, a scripted comedy following a pickup basketball team.
The list of exclusives includes four shows out of the U.K. which Andy Forssell, SVP of Content at Hulu, calls a “rich hunting ground” with “some of the worst TV and some of the greatest in the world.” I agree with Mr. Forssell on the grounds that my couch cushions have never recovered from a weekend-long, 7-season overindulgence of BBC’s Peep Show.
While much of the $500 million Hulu intends to spend on content this year will continue to go into licensing, interest in originals — especially with budgets that match their television counterparts, is always good news for cable-cutters. Online originals are nothing new however; I mentioned some from Netflix last year and both YouTube and Yahoo have spent some dough on their own.
Check out the full list of exclusives and an undoubtably better description of the originals here in the press release.
Apple recently launched an update to their Apple TV operating system. The new look takes some of the focus off their à-la-carte movie and TV store and opens the experience visually to a more diverse app-style marketplace.
The shift turned a small list of supported internet services into an array of featured apps similar to the iOS operating system, but for navigating with a remote control that goes two directions – up and down – rather than the more versatile touch screen. Future updates will bring a slew of new video applications — perhaps Hulu Plus, HBOGo and Showtime Anywhere, to step up its competition with other TV-connected devices like X-Box, PlayStation and internet-connected Blu-Ray players.
The game will really change soon, however, when the cable/satellite operators launch their VOD applications on the Apple TV. Most operators, like Verizon FiOS and Comcast Xfinity, have launched operations to build TV-connected device applications where all TV content is available on-demand immediately after airing. The Apple TV OS is even more closed and restricted than iOS in terms of user experience, but this may be a good thing for consumers tired of their poorly designed cable TV interfaces.
Time Warner has an iPad app where you can watch many TV channels live as long as you’re in your home. Combine that live experience with the VOD applications they’re building, and I predict that by the end of this year, the Apple TV will carry cable TV applications that provide both live streaming of network TV and a robust on-demand experience, but with the simple and logical user experience we all love on the the Apple TV. That said, with a monthly subscription price point 5+ times that of Netflix and Hulu Plus, we stand to see whether this change in user experience can reverse the current trend of cable TV cord-cutting.
Hot off the heels of a deal that brought 500 Paramount films to their movie rental service, YouTube has announced another major studio partnership with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This ink brings over 600 MGM titles to YouTube/Google Play including some of the best action flicks of all time – Terminator, Robocop, and Rocky. They have not made clear all the titles included though, stating instead to “keep checking back” and see for yourself.
The reluctance to state additional titles leads me to doubt the existence of any recent films like Hot Tub Time Machine or *cough* The Pink Panther 2. With online film viewership expected to double in the next year (overtaking physical media), major studios are going to have their hands full trying to squeeze every penny out of their IP and, yes, you the consumer. Unless Google (or anyone else) can convince them that they will make more green on their platform, there will be no incentive for the big boys to cough up their high-profile content. After all, most of them are trying to pimp their own direct-to-consumer offerings like Epix, a joint-venture between Viacom (Paramount), MGM, and Lionsgate.
No matter how the digital dust settles, it’s great to see Google /YouTube/Google Play — whatever they want us to call them — picking up a heap of new content. We were beginning to get worried after a few flopped platform launches…
