Television has been at the core of American culture nearly since its inception. It has been a center of communal gatherings, a place to share stories and news of the modern world, and more importantly it has developed into an artform of its own. But as we reach the latter half of the 2020’s TV seems to be unraveling in a way we’ve never truly seen. And in my mind, this slow unraveling can be pointed directly at one source. Streaming services.
Near the end of the 2010’s cable TV watched as Netflix slowly managed to become an equal rival against the long established format of network television. Several other platforms followed suit in the likes of Disney+, Prime, Max, and others. And as the weight of the Covid-19 lockdown came in full force, these services became wholly locked in place as the new way of consuming content.
But since then, these services only seem to get lower and lower returns on their investments. The People’s World Magazine reports that the three largest platforms in Disney, Netflix and HBO have all sustained a loss in subscribers during 2022 with similar low numbers in following years.
These losses in numbers continue to paint a larger failing of the streaming world. At their inception, most streaming services sought to grow their business as fast as possible in order to break into the market and they took on massive amounts of debt to do so. They did this in the hope that all their losses could be recovered once their platforms became profitable. However, these services were nowhere near large enough to take on that financial burden. And now on the other side of all this, these streaming services have begun finding ways to try and game the system to find more money.
Netflix, which once boasted of its tolerance and even acceptance of password sharing, has in recent months fully cracked down on any shared accounts in order to maximize their number of subscriptions. Hulu also attempted to earn more money by adding an advertisement included subscription tier. Many streaming services like Disney+ following suit. All of this done in an effort to try and form a more profitable market in a platform that was never fully meant to sustain itself.
And though the companies are slowly clawing a win out of this scenario. In reality, it’s the consumers and the creative teams behind these works that will take on the full force of the losses. The creatives lose because in an unsustainable market where companies seek to streamline and make everything as efficient and low cost as possible inevitably they start taking from their employees. Lower pays for the teams behind these streaming shows and even looking for ways to replace them and find cheaper ways to produce. We already saw this back in 2023 when the Writers Guild had to go on strike against movie and TVcompanies trying to implement AI writing algorithms into their products.
Among all this, the consumers also lose because they are given a slowly worse and worse product with less and less freedoms. More advertisements, higher priced subscriptions, and more difficulty in accessing content.
But above all the art suffers. Bishop O’Dowd’s own English teacher Mr. Blasser states that “More than ever shows conform to the wants of people. Streaming as a platform has a natural inclination to focus on content above art.” There seems to be a push towards writing shows to fulfill the desires of the audience, not the creatives behind it. While it is true that every industry is inherently focused on pleasing their consumers, every artform should be equally concerned with fulfilling the vision of the creator.
Streaming and the current climate of television has taken that vision away from the creators and into the executives and corporations seeking to meet a profit margin not create something meaningful.
Obviously this problem of profit over art is an issue in all forms of creativity but it seems as if streaming services in the current climate of visual media has compounded this problem. Companies and execs will always take the safe options, the shows and movies they know will make money. Fellow english teacher Ms. Bryant touches on this topic as well, “There is a higher bar of success for more unique genres and stories. And generally a higher price to even produce these projects in the first place.”
If you want to innovate, to create something impactful and meaningful that you haven’t seen any other piece of media really touch on in the way you want. Then, it is inherently a risk for any company or investor to bet on you because there will be a tremendous uphill battle to try and connect with the audience and entertain them. Because if you have an IP that has already proven its success its common sense to keep reusing it for easy profit.
We’ve seen this frequently in the realm of superhero films. Characters like Batman who already have done the work to be adopted by the public and thus are redone and used over and over because it’s a guaranteed means to make a profit. Disney+ follows this strategy vehemently as nearly all of its new shows and movies are in some way connected to past IP.
This in of itself discourages unique artistic stories but also forces the industry into a box that avoids innovation at every turn. Stagnating the process of storytelling and creativity. But clearly this process can’t go on forever. An IP’s value will decrease and companies can’t draw from the same well forever. Ms. Bryant once again touches on this, “We are heading towards a plateau of returns on IP. A lot of streaming services will hit a wall where using the same content over and over no longer works with the audience.”
All of this to say there has been a slow process of shows and movies trending towards stagnancy and repetition, heightened by the climate streaming services have helped create. But there is a post-streaming world we are slowly seeing glimpses of.
Smaller independent creators have been reclaiming the artistic freedom of visual media for years in platforms like Youtube. And shows like The Amazing Digital Circus, Hazbin Hotel and Vox Machina have begun breaking into the mainstream through other means than the pathways created by Hollywood and other large media companies.
Creatives will always find a way around the limitations of the current systems. To resist against this and make something meaningful amidst the mundane. It’s just up to us the audience and the consumers to find them and help them break through.
Bishop O’Dowds itself already seeks to do this through its art magazine the Muse. And as a community we should continue this work to support creatives and see them succeed in their work.
