After having invested thousands and cents to produce as much content as possible until indigestion, the major streaming platforms are reducing the sails. The current economic context is less buoyant, even if these services continue to attract subscribers. Now it’s all about saving money, at Netflix to start with.
Netflix will merge the unit responsible for producing low-budget films ($30 million and under) with the one that handles medium budgets (between $30 million and $80 million). These two entities had until now enough free rein to give the green light to a project, in a relatively autonomous manner vis-à-vis the management of the platform.
From now on, the decisions are centralized by Scott Stuber, the “chief film” of the platform who tries to reduce the number of productions to favor quality works. It must also be said that many of these Netflix films are released on the service discreetly, which prevents them from reaching part of their audience. Less quantity, more quality in a way, this is the idea behind this restructuring according to Bloomberg. The operation will also cause staff reductions.
Netflix is not alone in cutting productions. ” We need to better rationalize our costs », a explain Bob Iger, the ex-new boss of Disney. During a Morgan Stanley conference organized at the beginning of March, he also indicated that he was looking for ” obviously to recruit more subscribers while creating a ” pricing strategy that makes sense “. The news on this front is hardly brilliant:
Disney+ loses subscribers for the first time, Disney plans 7,000 layoffs
Disney found a ” logout between the expenses to acquire content and the way to make this same content profitable – especially since production costs have reached their peaks. The group, for example, has embarked on a reassessment of its Marvel strategy: do we really need a third or a fourth film around such a superhero, wondered Iger, “ Should we rather turn to new characters? ».
History of sharing the costs, Disney is also considering the possibility of breaking the exclusivity given to its streaming service and selling content licenses to other broadcasters.
On the side of Apple TV+, which is still trying to find a place in the crowded streaming market, we continue to release greenbacks. The service will thus invest 1 billion dollars per year in the production of films for the cinema (and to beef up its catalog, of course).
Apple would like to invest 1 billion dollars a year for the production of films