Are We In The Streaming Revolution’s Third Inning, Or Its Seventh?

Just over three years into the Modern Era of streaming video, and Wall Street’s analysts are about ready to call the revolution done.

Over at MoffettNathanson, analyst Michael Nathanson has been saying for months the combatants are exhausted, practically punch drunk. They’ve been finding, financing and showcasing high-profile shows, investing in an entirely new business while squeezing what’s left of their legacy platforms, and doing it all amid brutal competition and high expectations.

“The streaming wars are over because subscriber growth has come to a halt,” Michael Nathanson, a media analyst at MoffettNathanson, told CNN Business. “You’re fighting a war in a land that has no more resources in it.”

In late December, Needham & Co.’s Laura Martin and Dan Medina were less definitive, but only barely: “The Streaming Wars are in the 7th inning, not the 3rd,” they wrote, and began picking winners. “Streaming will mirror other digital marketplaces and garner winner-take-most economics.”

Netflix may be the biggest single service, Martin and Medina said, operating in the most countries, but that’s exactly why the company was likely to be a loser going forward. Basically, Netflix has already captured all the available easy growth it can grab. It’ll need new ways to generate growth, and profits.

Over at The Hub, the endemic challenges facing the industry are portrayed as being more generational in nature. Where older viewers (those over, ahem, just 35) watch lots of premium video on a big screen, their younger peers have a very different consumption pattern. They’re much more likely to use other screens for entertainment, and to use those screens to play video games or watch “non-premium” video content like that on YouTube, Twitch, or TikTok.

“The ‘streaming wars’ monopolize the spotlight when it comes to predicting the fortunes of media companies in the future,” said Hub principal Jon Giegengack.  “But this obscures an even more important shift:  the next generation of TV consumers are just less engaged with traditional TV itself.  Gaming and social video are the focus of their entertainment lifestyles.  There’s no reason to assume they’ll grow out of these habits as they age.  Media organizations need to adapt to these changes in order to meet tomorrow’s viewers on the devices and platforms where they will spend most of their time.”

The canary in this suddenly creaking coal mine has been Warner Bros. Discovery, which birthed last spring into a debt-battered financial hellscape that forced new CEO David Zaslav into endless rounds of cancellations, write-offs and layoffs.

WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, the company’s Wall Street point man, said last week that their financial triage phase is over. But he also conceded at the recent Citi 2023 Communications, Media & Entertainment Conference that the company’s app is “subpar” and a “frustrating” experience.

That crummy user experience presumably won’t be fixed before WBD mashes HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single service, reportedly (and inexplicably) to be called Max. Perhaps the UX resources are being well spent to make Max matter.

What consumers are more likely to notice, though, is Wiedenfels’ contention that streaming subscriptions in general are “priced way too low,” and that prices will creep up this year.

There’s no doubt that WBD wants the competition to raise prices a lot. One of the company’s biggest 2023 challenges is figuring out pricing when it does the Max Mash in the next couple of months.

HBO Max debuted in 2021 as one of the industry’s most expensive services, matching the $14.99-a-month cost of its premium cable sibling. But even the ad-supported version is more expensive than competitors, which can’t be a great look in a weak economy.

Mush in wall-to-wall reality shows from Discovery+, and fans of either (who aren’t already fans of both) will surely be lining up to pay $20 a month or more for Max, right? Right?

Or not. There’s not much evidence that the fans who line up for just-minted Golden Globes winners such as Euphoria and House of the Dragon are the same crew who watch international Real Housewives shows, Guy Fieri, Chip and Joanna Gaines, 90-Day Fiance, House Hunters, and Mythbusters.

Maybe Zaz and Weeds can make everyone get Max happy, and pay more for the privilege. It just doesn’t seem as likely as some other outcomes (I’m not the only one expecting a merger/spinoff with NBCUniversal in 2024 after WBD’s reverse Morris Trust limitations expire).

For what it’s worth, other media companies face their own price pressures, not least because Wall Street wants their streaming operations to make money by, gulp, next year. Some, like Netflix and Disney’s bundle, have already hiked prices.

And Nelson Peltz’s Trian Management, which just launched a proxy battle with Disney, wants returned CEO Bob Iger to definitely not stay more than two years, rationalize streaming spending, and get back to paying dividends by 2025. That’s major league pressure.

Most of the media companies are doing layoffs and spending cuts, too, moving closer to cash-flow positive. Hollywood talent and their representatives, meanwhile, are already squawking about noticeably tighter wallets among the buyers.

As for diversifying to engage younger viewers longer, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix already have substantial videogame ventures. Nobody has an alternative to TikTok. So who’s going to win the streaming wars, if we’re really in Inning 7/Act 3/early in the 4th quarter?

This year probably won’t decide a lot, but like a good set-up relief pitcher in pro baseball, what happens this year could shape a change-filled 2024, and finally bring this game to some kind of close.

By then, we should have a very good idea who’s really won, and who’s done.