How Consumers and Creators Soured on Streaming

Consider this history lesson from the Los Angeles Times.

When “House of Cards” premiered on Netflix 10 years ago, it was treated as a very expensive lab experiment: Would original programming get more people to sign up for Netflix, then primarily known as the company that destroyed Blockbuster?

The service, which had become the best place to catch up on shows like “Breaking Bad” that had initially aired elsewhere, counted 25 million streaming subscribers in the U.S. and was trying “to become HBO faster than HBO can become us,” said Ted Sarandos, then chief content officer, just before “House of Cards” launched in February 2013.

As it turned out, the experiment was a resounding success. Viewers would pay $8 a month for the ability to watch original shows on demand, whenever they wanted. High-profile writers, actors and directors would make the leap to an untested medium in return for the freedom to tell stories as they pleased.

The first original series commissioned by Netflix, “House of Cards” heralded the beginning of a new era for the company and for TV, accelerating the gold rush of quality scripted shows sparked six years earlier by the premiere of “Mad Men” on AMC.

Amazon, Hulu and other streamers quickly followed suit, developing sophisticated shows like “Transparent” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” and ushering in the era FX chairman John Landgraf would famously dub “Peak TV.” In 2012, there were an estimated 288 English-language scripted series across all of TV, according to FX research; last year, that number reached an all-time high of 599, with Netflix competing against cable and broadcast networks and a slew of streaming competitors including Disney +, HBO Max, Apple TV+ and Peacock.

For consumers, streaming offered a radical alternative to what Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings once called the “managed dissatisfaction” of traditional television — the constant low-level irritation of paying $150 or more a month for hundreds of channels they didn’t want because they did want Bravo, ESPN and CNN. With streaming, viewers got seemingly endless choice, convenience and bang for their buck.

Creators got to tell bold stories without worrying about commercial breaks or bone-headed notes from meddlesome network executives. The profusion of scripted TV shows created countless opportunities for emerging writers to break into the business. Everyone was happy!

For a while, anyway.

The giddy excitement viewers once felt about discovering a seemingly endless supply of new shows — and having almost instant access to old favorites — has given way to bitterness over rising subscription costs, password crackdowns, unceremonious cancellations and the general sense that there is a glut of TV, much of it bad.

Creators who once delighted in writing “10-hour movies” and bypassing the arduous pilot process find themselves cut off from meaningful data about how their shows are performing and dependent on a mysterious algorithm to get their work seen in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Instead of time to find an audience, niche programs face the prospect of cancellation or, worse, getting completely erased from the internet as a tax writeoff for a behemoth corporation in cost-cutting mode. Up-and-coming writers have to scrounge together a living on gigs that last a few months. And the writers’ strike, which began last month and threatens to drag on through the summer, has revealed an industry in existential crisis after a decade of unsustainable growth.

A decade after Netflix disrupted the industry, the initial promise of streaming has given way to frustration and fatigue for consumers and creators alike. Peak TV is in retreat and in its place is a new era of discontent: Call it Pique TV.

The article — an excellent read — provides an overview and analysis of two periods of time: The Bubble … and The Burst. The latter is just now playing out over the last year.

Here is my question.

If the quality of streaming programming is in decline … if the quantity of streaming programming is beginning to shrink … if streaming programming is losing its appeal to consumers … and if the streaming business model based upon growth, not profits is proving not to work …

Why the hell are we allowing streaming services — primarily Netflix — dictate the terms of negotiations between the AMPTP and the WGA as well as SAG-AFTRA?

What if Netflix is obsessed with hiding its viewing numbers because they are lousy, their model is failing, and they are desperate for people within the industry to not learn the truth?

In little more than a decade, streaming has gone from Bubble to Burst to possibly Bust.

Again, why allow them to determine the terms of negotiations?

For the rest of the L.A. Times article, go here.

For the latest updates on the strike and news resources, go here.