The top media companies went out of their way to obtain original content for their studios, networks, and streaming services, spending a cumulative $121 billion in 2019.
Competition in the digital space has coerced the entertainment industry to keep up with the mass consumption of viewers who are straying away from the theaters and glueing their eyes to their smart TVs and phones.
Netflix’s success after initially being shunned by the conventional studios sparked a growing trend of Subscription Video On Demand or SVOD services.
The tech industry placed their bids with companies such as, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google acquiring and developing original content for their own platforms.
Although late, the major studios joined the race starting their own streaming services. Viacom made some major moves in 2019, merging with CBS (who has CBS All Access) and launching streaming platforms BET+ and Paramount+.
Disney pulled all its movies from Netflix after announcing that the mega studio, who has IP in Marvel, Pixar, and Lucas Films, would be launching its own streaming platform, Disney+. Disney spruced up the competition by also launching an ESPN video streaming service.
Many more companies would follow suit and while it seemed to be the next move to make, Hollywood faced another major issue. The media conglomerates had to ask themselves whether they had enough content to lure customers and keep consumers engaged.
Of course, Disney’s intellectual property is so extensive and dates back so far that they were easily able to jumpstart their streaming service without worrying about having original content readily available. But, that wasn’t the case for most competitors.
An analysis done by the Variety Intelligence Platform reported that 72.5% of spending on original content resided with only five companies.
Disney spent an incredible $27.8 billion on original content for Disney+ and its studio. Comcast came in as the second highest investor in original content, dropping a whopping $15.4 billion. Netflix and ViacomCBS tied at $15 billion, while AT&T increased its spending to $14.2 billion.
The tech companies are giving the “Big Five” a run for their money. Amazon and Apple spent over $6 billion, while Warner Bros. doesn’t even make the list and Sony only spent $2.7 billion.
This is good news for the content creators who are hoping to pitch their work to companies who are actively searching for new content. Yet, on the other side of the spectrum, its a dangerous bottomless pit for the media companies as they compete with the Internet and the continuous launching of new streaming services.
