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There was just one problem: profits.
The companies bled money, and Wall Street soured on their businesses. So executives are turning back the clock. They are ordering lower-cost, old network standbys like medical dramas, legal shows and sitcoms. They are offering bundled packages to make consumers less tempted to click on the cancel button. (Disney+, Hulu and Max will team up later this year, for instance.) And they are embracing commercials, as a way to increase revenue.
“The crazy thing is that we might wind up where we’re back to ‘Texaco Presents,’” said Chuck Lorre, the comedy hitmaker behind shows like “Young Sheldon,” “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory.” “I’m old enough to remember Fred and Barney on ‘The Flintstones’ smoking cigarettes because the show was paid for by a tobacco company.”
Consumers can still avoid most of the ads, for a price. Most streaming services still have an ad-free version, including Amazon, which requires subscribers to pay an extra $3 a month to skip the ads. Apple TV+ continues to offer only an ad-free experience.
The commercial tiers, however, are becoming more essential to their business. There were at least 93 million ad-supported streaming subscriptions in the United States at the end of last year, according to estimates from Brian Wieser, an industry analyst, and Antenna, a subscription research firm. In the wake of Amazon’s automatic switch to advertising, and more ad-tier customers picked up by other streaming services, Mr. Wieser and Antenna estimate that there are at least 170 million ad-supported subscriptions now.
Through the first three months of 2024, 56 percent of new subscribers to a streaming service chose the lower-priced ad-tier, according to Antenna. That was up from 39 percent a year earlier, the firm said.
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Kaynak: briturkish.com
