How Streaming is Changing Film & TV Production

In this article we’ll take a look at how streaming is reshaping film and TV production and how that’s affecting creativity, finance, distribution, and audience engagement.

A Short History of Streaming Services

1990s – Early 2000s

The idea of streaming started to take shape in the mid ‘90s but it wasn’t desperately successful because of slow internet speeds and limited bandwidth. RealPlayer came out in 1995 and that let users stream audio and video online but the quality wasn’t great.

Netflix and DVD Rentals

In 1997/8 Netflix launched a DVD by post rental service, so customers could rent online and receive the DVD in the mail. At first this was pay as you rent, but they offered a subscription service in 1999 where members could rent unlimited DVDs with no extra fees. In 2000 they started using ratings on titles that had been rented, to recommend others to those customers. By 2003 they’d gathered over 1 million subscribers, and by 2006, 5 million!

In 2007 Netflix launched its streaming service with a limited amount of TV shows and films to watch instantly on computers, this was the start of the streaming era.

Major Competitors

Hulu launched in 2008 as a joint venture between a few major media companies, including News Corporation, NBCUniversal, Providence Equity, and later The Walt Disney Company. Unlike Netflix, which offered a wide range of movies and TV shows, Hulu focused on current episodes of TV series.

Amazon joined the streaming market in 2011 with Amazon Prime Video. At first it was a perk for Prime members but soon it grew its offering and started to produce original content.

The Streaming Boom!

In the 2010s there was an explosion of streaming services, everyone was jumping on the bandwagon and each service was trying to offer something unique to get people subscribing.

• 2013 – Netflix released House of Cards, which was its first original series. This strategy seemed to work, people loved it, and it led to the production of a bunch of well-loved series and films.

• 2014 – HBO launched its stand-alone streaming service, HBO Now, which let viewers access HBO’s content without a cable (TV) subscription.

• 2019: Disney+ and Apple TV+ launched. Disney already had a huge library of existing content but quickly started to create new originals and attracted millions of subscribers. Apple’s whole focus was on original programming and they went for high-quality, exclusive content.

How Were Things Changing?

Viewing Habits

With a shift to on-demand it meant that people could, for the first time, choose what they wanted to watch and when they watched it. Rather than waiting a week for the next episode, many series had them all there immediately, leading to ‘binge watching’. This meant that TV and film writing needed to change to fit these habits, like more tightly written series leaving us with cliff-hangers at the end of each episode so we’d be impatient to watch the next.

Global Reach and Diverse Content

Suddenly, filmmakers (and TV producers) could reach international audiences without the need for local distributors. This encouraged more diverse content as there was an opportunity to appeal to a bigger audience. Platforms started to invest in a wider range of genres and formats to try and cater for a range of preferences. There was, for example, a rise in the interest of Bollywood films in places like the UK because these were added to Netflix. Foreign language films and series have seen a boom all round, with hits like Squid Game and Money Heist becoming some of the most popular non-English titles.

Production Timelines

The demand for new shows and films put a lot of pressure on production timelines. People want it now and so many productions started to work on tighter timelines, with shorter turnaround times between a project been green-lit and its release. There are positives and challenges with this. The positives are that a need for new material means there’s plenty of work about for creatives in those jobs, but the pressure on turnaround also means that it’s harder to keep high-quality across the board.

Financial Considerations

Streaming platforms generate revenue with monthly subscription fees, which means that if those remain steady (that’s a larger conversation) then cash flow is more predictable and more investment can be made in producing content without relying on box office performance as with traditional studios. The flip side of this is that shows and films are now being judged on their immediate success (or lack of) meaning that something can get cancelled immediately, something that Netflix has been accused of a lot.

‘But what’s happened now is that this has happened so often with so many shows, that Netflix has created a self-fulfilling loop with many series that probably could have gone on to become valuable catalogue additions otherwise.’ – Paul Tassi for Forbes.

Distribution

Theatres vs. Streaming

Streaming services have hugely impacted theatre releases. It’s more convenient and cheaper to watch from home so a lot of people prefer that to the cinema. It’s hard to tell how much this has impacted cinema-going because the pandemic also had a huge effect, with streaming figures higher than ever while people looked for ways to fill their time in lockdown and the subsequent closure of many theatres once things opened up again.

Some studios have adopted a hybrid model where they release films in cinemas and on streaming platforms either at the same time, or shortly after. There’s a broader accessibility then for people who still want the experience of seeing something on the big screen, though the releases are generally for a very short time so it can be hard to get to see something before it’s gone again.

What About Independent Filmmakers?

In a change to the norm, indies have actually benefitted from streaming services as they can now bypass the usual distribution methods and release films directly to the platforms. Theatre distribution deals are hard to get, not to mention costly, so this can cut a significant corner and get a production out to a much greater audience. While Netflix is a trickier beast, requiring submissions through a formal representative, submitting to Amazon Prime is much more straightforward as long as the film fits their criteria.

What’s the Impact of Streaming on Audiences?

In touching on the impact on the industry, we’ve kind of looked at audiences too, but here are some of the biggest ways streaming has impacted viewers:

• Binge watching: people can watch multiple episodes or films in one sitting, keeping them engaged for longer times.
• Personalised viewing: algorithms now suggest content based on what we’ve watched or rated, so it’s easier to find new films or series we like.
• Greater accessibility: shows are more accessible to more diverse audiences, both in the sense of geography but also meaning people who can’t get to the cinema can enjoy many programmes from home at the same time as everyone else.
• Subtitles and dubbing: many shows have subtitles and even dubbing in a range of languages so people can enjoy films in other languages. This has actually led to a lot of multi-language productions that are part-subtitled by default.

Something that isn’t mentioned all that much either is how hard it is to own films and series any more. Due to the decline of physical media brought about by streaming, DVD and Blu-ray sales have seen a huge drop, which impacts retail and rental businesses, the latter of which have pretty much gone entirely out of use now. Buying something digitally means you’re tied to the app you bought it through, which is why some people are still holding onto their hard copies.

What is the Future of Streaming?

The future of film (or TV) production and streaming are linked and will no-doubt keep being influenced by trends. As the Forbes article said though, this can create a self-perpetuating loop where programmes are simply not given enough time to be watched and grow in popularity. There are tons of traditional TV shows that didn’t pick up viewership until their second or third seasons but with the need for immediate success many shows won’t get that chance unless they’re picked up elsewhere. Sometimes the reverse of this happens, like The Expanse, which Amazon Prime picked up after Syfy cancelled it and produced three more series to bring it to a proper conclusion.

Short form content is quick to produce and fairly cost-effective, which is probably why we’ve seen the rise of ‘limited series’ content. There’s no worry about it getting cancelled either if you know it’s going to be the only one!

AI driven recommendations will surely be built into streaming apps in the near future, analysing what we watch (and how) and what we rate, and making more personalised suggestions off the back of that. It’s not impossible that we’ll also see the introduction of virtual or augmented reality technologies creeping into storytelling too. They dipped a toe into the water of this back in 2018 with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, where viewers could choose what the main character did at certain parts of the story, and those decisions changed the outcomes.

Kaleidoscope was another non-linear show where you could watch the episodes in any order you liked and the story would still make sense. This type of storytelling hasn’t found its feet yet, but it does make it a unique option when compared to traditional viewing and cinema going, so it’s likely to appear again with more regularity when the technology allows easier and more natural interaction.

Subscription Fatigue

As prices of streaming services continue to rise, while value goes down (the introduction of ads, a non-HD tier, shows being cancelled) people are becoming ‘overwhelmed and frustrated’. There are so many different services now, all at different prices for different things, and that can make it hard to a) see the value in them and b) keep track of spending.

Some streaming services are even grouping together to offer subscription bundles that give you access to a few sites for one price. We’ve come full circle to the equivalent of cable subscription packages. This is (slowly) leading to people cancelling subscriptions, and, perhaps more sensibly, subscribing > watching > cancelling and then moving on to another service.

‘Among these nomadic subscribers, some are taking advantage of how easy it is, with a monthly contract and simple click of a button, to hopscotch from one service to the next. Indeed, these users can be fickle — a third of them resubscribe to the cancelled service within six months.’ – John Koblin for the New York Times.

Conclusion

Streaming services have had an impact on every part of film production, from financing and storytelling to engaging with an audience. Streaming has come such a long way in a relatively short time and no doubt the evolution will continue. Some great things have come out of this, like easier access to a greater and more diverse bank of programmes and films, and a way for independent filmmakers to get into the game without huge costs prohibiting them. But, we’ve seen a demand for new content changing production timelines sometimes resulting in lower quality outputs, and a decline in physical media that means we never really get to own anything any more.

As for what the future holds, who knows, but it will no doubt be driven by advancements in tech, consumer preferences, and as always, profit.

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About This Page

This page was written by Marie Gardiner. Marie is a writer, author, and photographer. It was edited by Andrew Blackman. Andrew is a freelance writer and editor, and is a copy editor for Envato Tuts+.