In recent years, there has been a different streaming service for everything: one for sports, one for films, one for Disney and so on. Many companies are trying to take the Netflix route in making a streaming service for their shows and movies since Netflix has been so successful with it. This has caused cable television to go quickly downhill with everyone signing up for these streaming services now. This should be a good thing for the companies, however, the streaming services have now caused serious financial problems. 

“All of these companies spent more money than they likely should have,” says Marc DeBevoise, CEO and board director of Brightcove, a streaming technology company.

Originally, streaming services were seen as the future for television and movie viewing, pumping out service after service with people’s favorite movies and shows all together in one place. People who originally used cable tv started “cutting the cords,” essentially getting rid of their cable services at very high rates. For them, streaming offered a better value, cable packages were expensive and you couldn’t pick what you wanted.  

“The problem is streaming isn’t yet profitable for many studios,” reports CNBC.

Many streaming platforms are trying to compete with the most successful of them all, Netflix, which happened to be the only one with no loss of profits in 2023.  The issue with rival platforms is that they have yet to figure out the formula that led to the success of Netflix. Previously, companies would be making money from the ad-revenue brought by traditional cable tv, but now there is a reliance on subscriptions. The high licensing costs for the movies and shows they put on the streaming service and low revenues per subscriber have quickly caught up with the studios.

Since Netflix has grown to be such a large, successful company, other media companies have followed suit, creating platforms like  Paramount +, Peacock, Prime Video, HBO Max, ect. 

Cable was less expensive for these companies and had more opportunities to make money. Now these companies have put all of their money into one thing and only receive profits from a singular aspect instead of having their shows and movies distributed to more entertainment companies. 

Companies and consumers are currently questioning if they should switch back to cable or keep streaming services. Both have their pros and cons, but streaming is by no way the perfect solution to tv and movies.