David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, recently suggested that streaming websites owned by different companies cooperate instead of competing with each other. Strange as it must sound, Zaslav might have a good idea. At the SVB MoffettNathanson Inaugural Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, he spoke to a group of his peers, offering his new perspective only a week before his own streaming properties changed.
The idea Zaslav brought before his rivals was one of cooperation through “repackaging and marketing of products,” not merging through acquisition. In his ideal world, all streaming services would be offered on a single umbrella platform where consumers would own different subscriptions. In theory, this solves one of the streaming industry’s most significant problems to date. It may even be an inevitable reality coming for the industry. But with the streaming wars the way they are, it’s nearly impossible to even think of it.
David Zaslav’s proposition could greatly benefit consumers and,thus, streaming companies, but the fact that it won’t come to fruition is simply a sign of the times; the attitude that victory must be achieved by defeating opponents and not by working together—a sentimental idea, to be sure, but not an ineffective strategy.
Why Streamers Are at War
Streaming’s biggest problem is its churn rate or the number of consumers who stop subscribing for one reason or another. And according toa Harris Poll by Samba TV, the biggest reason consumers stop subscribing is that no other content interests them. And yes, one way to look at this problem is that the platform does not offer enough quality content.
But parent companies are beginning to subvert their own ideal of having the best content in competition with others. More often now, companies are licensing different IPs to make them available across platforms, thus separating them from a particular brand. That is to say, you might only be able to watch Star Trek content on Paramount+, but you can see the Harry Potter movies on Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and Peacock.
Right now, consumers are forced to google where the content they want to see is available, and if it’son a different platform, it leads to unsubscribing and a greater churn rate for the company.
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The Future Is Coming
So the idea would be to put all the content on a single platform and then disseminate profits based on licensing agreements for the IPs like it’s done with audio. But somehow, this is more difficult in corporate Hollywood. A big question is raised of who would control the platform, and a cooperative venture in this can almost immediately be struck downby Hulu’s example, which has almost always been unsuccessfully controlled by more than one company.
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Perhaps Zaslav has a vision of the end of the streaming wars. Uniting the platforms may be the highest – and the final – mountain to climb. Some companies are already doing this through aggregating subscription services. Amazon’s Channels, Apple TV, and Roku are some that are taking this approach to the market. But all of them are performing this strategy on a small scale.
Zaslav voiced his concernsat the conference: “If we don’t do it ourselves, I think it’ll be done to us.” Meaning that this is likely to happen through another route. This may become another case of Amazon steadily absorbing an industry over a long period of time. Or it could be that a plucky young start-up would be willing to write the necessary coding and slog through the impossible amount of paperwork it would take to create this super-streaming platform.
For now, it seems this dream is one that is far on the horizon. Even if it may be a good idea, the streaming wars are too heavily entrenched in the nature of the industry to be stopped with an inspirational speech. The market is simply not ready for it.
