Streaming changed how we watch television. But there are signs the party is almost over
Lesson summary
This is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and you are listening to lesson number 578 of Plain English. Some English learning podcasts charge money for the transcripts, but we give them away for free. You can find today’s transcript at PlainEnglish.com/578.
Coming up today: In the last ten years, there’s been a revolution in television. You know that. You may have canceled your pay television service, or stopped watching over-the-air TV, in favor of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and HBO Max.
But the revolution is not just in how you get your entertainment. There’s also been a revolution in how entertainment is made. On today’s lesson, we’ll talk about why streaming services have been spending so much on new content. And on Thursday, we’ll talk about why that might be coming to an end.
In the second half of today’s lesson, I’ll show you how to use the English expression “big deal” and we have a quote of the week. Let’s get going.
Streaming’s big budgets changed our TV habits
“Linear television” is a term that describes the way we used to watch TV. There’s a limited number of channels and they show one program at a time. It’s called “linear” because you can see the schedule from left to right as the day progresses. If it’s 9:00 now, look to your right on the schedule to see what’s on at 10:00; follow the line to see what’s on two hours from now, at 11:00, and so on . The schedule is a line, so it’s called linear television.
In the age of linear television, studios would research and produce seasons of popular shows. Some shows were hits, some were misses. Hit shows were good because advertisers paid more to reach more consumers. Misses were bad, but not devastating.
The industry was sticky: consumers always paid their expensive bill every month, so there was an element of safety in making television programs. You just had to keep people basically happy—just happy enough to not cancel their cable or, you know, read a book.
That’s different in streaming. Now, consumers have lots of streaming options, and it’s easy to cancel a service and switch to a competitor. What’s more , everyone realizes streaming is the future, so nobody wants to be left behind.
In response, streaming services have spent lavishly on new shows, hoping to get new subscribers and to keep the ones they have. The way they’ve done that is spending: spending more on hit shows, and spending more on lots of smaller shows and movies that appeal to a smaller, niche audience.
Why has so much money gone into television in the streaming age? There are three types of streaming services and they’ve all had their own reasons for spending big.
The first category is the streaming native. In this category, there’s just one player: Netflix. It’s the biggest and, arguably, the best service. It defined the category; Netflix started it all. Netflix has a lot of money from subscribers, and it wants to reinvest that money in new shows. Netflix has the most to lose, so the company is willing to spend to protect its territory as the market leader.
The second category is the legacy media companies that have launched their own streaming services. Think of HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Peacock, even the BBC’s streaming service. These companies have a lot of great content and expertise making programming. But they are afraid of being left in the dust . They’re willing to spend because they know if they miss streaming, they’re done.
And then finally, there are the big tech companies that have their own streaming services. These include Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video. Apple and Amazon have made mountains of money in recent decades from their main businesses. They’ve grown quickly; they’ve amassed piles of cash.
But they need to find new ways to grow. The last big device Apple released was ten years ago, the Apple Watch. Amazon covers much of the globe already. They need to get into new businesses. And they have a lot of cash. So they’re spending some of that cash on expensive new shows, hoping that streaming might provide a source of growth in the future. They don’t mind so much if they lose money on streaming; it’s not a big deal to them.
So there’s a lot of money sloshing around the industry. How expensive is a new show? A single episode of “Yellowstone” on Paramount+ costs $30 million to make, according to its producer, Taylor Sheridan. That’s the cost of a low-budget movie, and for just one episode. There are 47 episodes of “Yellowstone” and there are multiple spinoffs planned.
It’s not just the quality and budget of the shows being produced, either. It’s the quantity. In 2019, Netflix released more series than the entire television industry released in 2005. Think about that for a second. A service that costs $15 or $20 a month released more content in one year than the whole television industry did just fourteen years earlier. Last year, Netflix released 891 original series.
All this time, you and I have been the ones benefiting: Yes , streaming bills add up. But if you think about the quality and selection, and if you compare it to what we used to pay for linear TV, you can come to only one conclusion: we are spoiled for choice.
That, however, may be about to change. On Thursday’s lesson, we’ll talk about the reasons why the party may be ending—or at least slowing down.
Reruns
It is really incredible how much is out there. If you used to watch linear TV, you remember that they didn’t make new shows every night or even every week. Even a good show might have only produced 20 or so episodes a year.
So you would frequently tune in and watch an old episode, one you’ve seen already, out of order, out of context. And you would watch it because it was on! Because it was on and you were available, you’d watch it.
We’re so lucky these days. I can’t tell you the last time I watched a show I had already seen before. You never have to anymore.
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