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Warner’s apparent eagerness to do business with JK Rowling in order to bring Harry Potter’s Wizarding World to the small-screen for HBO, despite an inevitable backlash, underlines an obvious and unmissable point – streamers are starving for quality content and ‘fan favourite’ intellectual property.
It is, at the same time, the reasoning underlying the newly announced US$21bn merger of ‘sports entertainment’ and mixed martial arts behemoths WWE and UFC, and, at least partially, what’s driving the apparently massive premium in Manchester United’s supposed £6bn valuation.
For content acquirers the rationale is quite simple, find a brand that the audience has enough attachment to that month after month they won’t cancel subscriptions.
Whatever the particular tastes or demographics, each of the major streaming platforms is put together with a fairly similar formula.
Each platform has sticky ‘must watch’ exclusive or self-produced shows that anchor subscriptions, and, around those are built a mass of filler content that’s essentially there to keep viewers busy enough while they wait for the next season of their favourite shows.
Disney: Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Walking Dead
Warner (HBO): Game of Thrones, Last of Us, Succession, DC Comics
Netflix: Stranger Things, Squid Game
Amazon Prime Video: The Rings of Power, The Boys, Vikings, Clarkson’s Farm,
Paramount: Yellowstone
Apple TV: Ted Lasso
Subscriber growth has, however, stalled across the streaming sector and that is evidently driving some compelling valuation stories.
Disney+ has amassed close to 162mln subscribers, while Netflix has around 170mln paying accounts and overall Amazon has 200mln Prime members (who get the streaming platform along with shopping benefits).
HBO Max quickly picked up nearly 100mln paying users, whilst Paramount has 77mln, Apple TV+ has built up 25mln and Peacock has 20mln subscribers.
The problem with making TV and movies is that creative…
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