1. Branded Streaming Partnerships
While I predicted last year, the focus of the streaming giants will be on producing original content to encourage people to subscribe, this year it’ll be all about smart partnerships. The streaming market is now so competitive that it’s basically unprofitable, forcing companies to find new ways to acquire and retain customers while increasing perceived value and decreasing costs.
One of these smart win-win partnerships is Netflix’s partnership with Nike that will bring more than 30 hours of workout videos to the entertainment streaming app. The leading streaming platform and athletic apparel brand have joined forces just in time for that annual New Year’s resolution of exercising more. The videos, produced by Nike Training Club, are available across all of Netflix’s subscription plans. They are also dubbed into four additional languages. From Nike’s POV, it’s great to get access to a new audience, with Netflix’s 223 million global subscribers. But for Netflix it’s an excellent deal, too, as they tap into Nike’s huge (young) fan community.
2. Streamer Content gets Second-Life
The key to acquiring new customers is still original content. But while shows like House of Cards and Ozark were huge hits for Netflix, they are not the reasons anymore, people are signing up for the service. The question now is how do Netflix & Co. make additional revenue from their original content shows? It’s probably, at least in part, by finding a new partner for whom shows like Ozark are exceptionally more valuable now. We’ve reached the point where less flush streamers will happily pay to air reruns of other streamers’ content.
At its core, content removal is a consequence of a few things: not wanting to pay backend fees, taking advantage of tax write-downs, and “freeing up” room on the digital shelf. But it’s also about becoming a new monetization tactic as audiences use tiered entertainment options. Especially FAST Channels could give old streamer content a second-life. Free, ad-supported platforms like Pluto TV and Freevee asserted themselves in 2022. Paramount's Pluto TV made up 1 percent of all viewing in October, according to Parrot Analytics’ Julia Alexander.
3. Dark Comedy, the Genre of 2023
After premiering in November 2022, Tim Burton series Wednesday broke several records for Netflix, such as beating Stranger Things season 4 to become the platform's most-watched English-language series in its first week. Unsurprisingly, Netflix officially renewed it for a second season on January 6.
Another series that broke records and won all awards in 2022 was HBO's Succession. By many, it is considered to be one of the best shows currently on television. Succession is filled with dark humor, with each character having a quick-witted and vile arsenal of insults and backtalk. The series, loosely based on the real-life Murdoch family, takes a dramatized look at the owners of a major news conglomerate, offering some of the best drama and intrigue on TV.
4.AI Creates Content
The future has arrived, and artificial intelligence (AI) is officially everywhere and more accessible than ever. This is called Generative AI and refers to machine learning algorithms that let computers take existing content, like text and images, and create new content. By using text-to-image software, you could type something like “woman in a red dress and blue sky”, and within a few seconds, the AI will generate a new piece of art. Generative AI is also coming for videos. A new website called QuickVid combines several generative AI systems into a single tool for automatically creating short-form YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat Videos. You just have to give QuickVid a single word and it chooses a background video from a library, writes a script and keywords, overlays images generated by DALL-E and adds a synthetic voiceover and background music from YouTube’s royalty-free music library. QuickVid’s creator, Daniel Habib, says that he’s building the service to help creators meet the “ever-growing” demand from their fans".
5. YouTube Shorts Takes Off
Another of my predictions last year was the return of long-form content. Even though, this is the case, e.g., with video essays on YouTube, there’s no denying how popular short-form content is and I’m predicting this year YouTube Shorts will really take off.
YouTube is the second-largest social media platform, coming in just behind Facebook and it’s clear that YouTube is heavily promoting Shorts, with a series of recent announcements and features that include a $100 million investment in original creator content. And according to Adweek, views on YouTube Shorts have already generated an average of 30B views per day last year.
The appeal of YouTube Shorts is twofold: creators who post on Shorts are able to attract more viewers to their long-form content and grow their number of subscribers. Plus, with YouTube's upcoming monetization opportunities for Shorts, including the fact that creators are eligible to keep a whopping 45% of the revenue generated from views, the platform will reemerge as a go-to for creators - after TikTok being the platform of the year 2022.
Another of my predictions last year was the return of long-form content. Even though, this is the case, e.g., with video essays on YouTube, there’s no denying how popular short-form content is and I’m predicting this year YouTube Shorts will really take off.
YouTube is the second-largest social media platform, coming in just behind Facebook and it’s clear that YouTube is heavily promoting Shorts, with a series of recent announcements and features that include a $100 million investment in original creator content. And according to Adweek, views on YouTube Shorts have already generated an average of 30B views per day last year.
The appeal of YouTube Shorts is twofold: creators who post on Shorts are able to attract more viewers to their long-form content and grow their number of subscribers. Plus, with YouTube's upcoming monetization opportunities for Shorts, including the fact that creators are eligible to keep a whopping 45% of the revenue generated from views, the platform will reemerge as a go-to for creators - after TikTok being the platform of the year 2022.
You must be logged in to post a comment.