Given the pace of change in the streaming video and television industries in the past several years, making any predictions about what might happen in 2024 certainly feels like a doomed enterprise. At this time last year, no one would have predicted a nearly six-month strike disruption in the industry and all of the chaos that resulted from the extended work stoppage.
And yet, here I am with my predictions for 2024.
I write this confident that some tsunami of disruption will hit the industry in 2024 that none of us saw coming. But that is also the exciting part of this industry. Business models are evolving and being discarded at a rapid pace. Streaming platforms rise and fall. Executives are unexpectedly replaced and resign when everyone least expects it.
My predictions aren't necessarily the things that will end up being the biggest stories of 2024. But they are the ones that I have some sense might be on the agenda.
Here are my predictions for 2024:
1) The Content Contraction Won't Be As Large As Everyone Predicts
I am routinely seeing industry analysts and people working in Hollywood predict that 2024 will bring an original content contraction in the range of 20-25%.
Now I'll say upfront that 2024 is not going to be an accurate barometer of content spend any more than 2023 turned out to be. The industry is still working through the impact of the dual Hollywood strikes and I think there will be some other less-impactful job actions going on throughout the course of the year.
But even with all of those caveats, I suspect the slowdown in original content will be less impactful than predicted. To be clear, I think less money will be spent in the U.S. However, there will be an increase in multi-country co-productions and other ways of financing that will shift more of production away from the U.S. while still creating programming that feels familiar to American viewers.
And don't go by the "Peak TV" number, which as I have noted before, is more of a PR stunt than a quantifiable industry metric.
2) AI Will Be A Problem For Hollywood, But Not In The Way Anyone Is Predicting
One of the negotiating challenges during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes was that all sides recognized that artificial intelligence was a looming problem. But there wasn't any consensus on how AI might be used or the dangers it may present.
I don't think we'll see prices drop enough to make an AI-created digital avatar economically feasible for any but the highest-end productions anytime soon. But I am almost positive that by this time next year, some AI technique will be looming over the industry and it will be something so new that no one saw it coming.
3) Amazon Will Grab An NBA Streaming-Only Package
The NBA's excusive negotiating window with ESPN and TNT expires in mid-April and I think it's almost certain the league will add several other media partners. Both ESPN and TNT need to keep their lineup for NBA games for strategic reasons, but neither Disney (who owns ESPN) or Warner Bros. Discovery (which owns TNT) want to pay some massive increase in rights for a new contract.
So I predict we'll see the NBA keep ESPN and TNT as its primary media partners, while carving out one or two packages for other media partners. Tops of the list of potential new partners is Amazon, which will likely end up with some NBA version of its Thursday Night Football package.
A darkhorse in this race is Comcast. NBC aired a package of NBA games throughout the 1990s and early 2000's. So it's possible we'll see a smaller package of NBA games that is split between NBC and/or Peacock.
4) Warner Bros. Discovery Will Try And Kill Discovery+ (Again)
Even before the merger between Discovery and Warner Brothers was finalized, new CEO David Zaslav was predicting the end of the smaller streamer Discovery+. He argued at the time that the company would roll those subscribers into Max, thereby extracting a higher monthly subscriber fee from its customers.
Spoiler: many Discovery+ subscribers weren't interested in the upgrade. So Discovery+ lives on, although WBD has slowly been strangling the streaming service in hopes of convincing subscribers to just give up and move to Max.
I expect we'll see another effort to close Discovery+ this year, likely with combination of a grandfathered discount along with more original food programming that heads directly to Max (like the just announced Carla Hall series). I'm not convinced the move will be successful, but I am reasonably sure they'll try nonetheless.
5) Netflix's Gaming Ambitions Will Begin To Pay Off
Netflix has been spending impressive amounts of money and effort to build out its gaming division and the mobile-only games have so far not had a big impact with subscribers or the overall gaming industry.
But I think Netflix's long-rumored move to a TV-based gaming platform will likely happen in 2024 and when that launches, the streamer will instantly become of the largest gaming services in the world. It's not clear if Netflix intends to include as part of the services' base package or sell it as an add-on. But given the number of Netflix subscribers and the growing mix of hot gaming titles licensed by Netflix, a TV-based gaming platform will provide a challenge to every other company in the online gaming space.
6) One Of The Penske Media-Owned Hollywood Trades Will Experiment With A Subscriber-Only Option
Like every other major media company, Penske Media is facing a number of financial headwinds for 2024. The advertising market continues to be weak, especially in the programmatic ad space, which Penske utilizes heavily on all of its Hollywood trade web sites. The company also relies heavily on FYC advertising, which is likely to be a more unpredictable revenue stream in 2024.
Given that Penske owns a majority of the core Hollywood news outlets - and their coverage tends to overlap quite a bit - I predict we'll see at least some talk about shifting one of the major sites to a subscriber-only mix similar to what Penske has done with sites such as Rolling Stone.
Variety locks some special features inside a VIP subscriber tier, but I am talking about a more generalized approach to a subscriber-only tier. And it might work, if the sales teams can successfully sell package deals to studios and agencies.
What do you think will happen in 2024? Let me know at
