Once More Into The Breach: Ten Fearless Predictions For 2023

Once again, it's time for TVREV's Fearless Predictions, a tradition since 2016. 

10 key issues the industry will confront this year and our predictions on how things will play out.

1. The Industry’s Two Biggest Problems Remain Unresolved

The television industry has two big problems, one a consumer issue, the other a business issue, and neither of them will be any closer to resolution by this time next year.

Let’s start with the consumer issue, because ostensibly, that should be the easier one to fix: Search.

Yes, search works fine within individual apps and even on smart TVs and connected devices, most of which even have voice-enabled search by this point.

But none of them are able to give you a comprehensive menu featuring the shows on the services you’ve subscribed to, or even to help you find them. 

That, sadly, is still more easier accomplished via Google than via the home screen of a connected device. 

Not because of any failure on the part of the device manufacturers, but because the proprietors of the various streaming services do not allow for “deep linking” or the ability to click on a link or a tile on a device’s menu and get taken straight to the series. They want you to go in through their service’s own home screen so that they can try and upsell you on other shows and capture your viewing data and possibly serve you some ads.

Unfortunately, the resulting system is incredibly frustrating for consumers, most of whom don’t work in the industry (i.e. are not reading this article) and thus are not all that up on which service has which show. (The fact that so many streaming services have very similar types of shows—call them “HBO-like” shows—does not help either.)

But frustrating though that may be for consumers, the desire to control the experience is stronger and I don’t see streamers giving it up.

[ETA: Many services do allow you to deep link to some (but not all) of their shows once you’ve searched for them on your device’s universal search feature and indicated that yes, you do want to, say, watch White Lotus on HBO Max rather than buying the entire first season from Amazon. It’s clunky and doesn’t solve the greater problem, but it is a step in the right direction. HT to Barry Kiefl, President of Canadian Media Research Inc. for the note.]

The second issue is one I’ve been beating a large and loud drum about these past months: Carriage and Retrans Fees.

Since the passage of the Cable Act almost 30 years ago, the U.S. TV industry has gotten used to taking in tens of billions of dollars in retrans and carriage fees from the MVPDs each year. This created a situation where the networks acted like lottery winners, handing out money left and right to production companies, actors, writers, showrunners and, of course, suits. 

All well and good, but those numbers became entrenched and 30 years in they have become the norm.  

And the thing about streaming is that there are no carriage and retrans fees. Which is why everyone is freaking out about how streaming is not as good a business as linear.

Because it’s not.

There’s no magical pony handing out tens of billions of dollars in carriage and retrans fees, money that the MVPDs ultimately collect from consumers in the form of higher cable bills.

And that’s not going to change either.

What might change is TPTB acknowledging that this is the real issue, that streaming can indeed be a lucrative and successful business, but without carriage and retrans fees, it will never be as lucrative as linear once was.

WBD seems to get this, which explains much of their cost-cutting activity, but I am not sure how much the rest of the industry or much of the media does.

So there’s that and those two issues promise to keep nipping at the industry’s heels throughout 2023.

2. Churn Leads To All Sort Of Bundling

I feel like I’ve been predicting this for the past five years, maybe even longer. 

It goes back to 2017, when Hulu did a deal with Spotify aimed at college students and everyone (myself included) decided that non-traditional bundles would be the future of bundles, that everything that came with a monthly subscription would be bundled together, be it storage, the Washington Post (Amazon owns them) and, of course, audio and ebook services. 

It hasn’t happened yet, and while hope springs eternal, consumers don’t seem all that jazzed about it. I suspect they find it overly confusing.

Far more likely is a scenario where...[READ ON]

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HAPPY 2023!!!

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