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Gustavo Devito
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Four months after being acquired by
AT & T
,
WarnerMedia, formerly known as Time Warner, announced last week its intention to launch a unified streaming service by the end of 2019.
The space for direct online distribution to the consumer is filled with people, with
Netflix
,
Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu being the main actors, while
Walt Disney
said that he will join the party next year. Many consumers have to choose the platform to choose because their subscription to all is simply too expensive for most people.
This makes content platforms can deliver critical as they struggle to attract subscribers.
WarnerMedia already owns HBO Now, which broadcasts HBO programming online and via smart TVs, but the company plans to expand its reach by leveraging its broad portfolio of content. This includes hit movies like the "Harry Potter" and "Wonder Woman" franchise, TV shows like "Friends" and original HBO content such as the hit series "Game of Thrones".
Some of this content is currently licensed to other streaming companies. "Friends", for example, can be viewed on Netflix. WarnerMedia may decide to terminate the contracts after they expire in order to distribute this content exclusively on its own platform.
The company announced that it will decide how to manage these contracts as the launch of its new service gets closer.
Walt Disney, which plans to launch its own streaming service in 2019, has already made this shift. From "Captain Marvel" in March 2019, all Disney-distributed movies will go to his own service instead of Netflix.
The loss of licenses would certainly be detrimental to libraries of existing platforms, but many of them quickly turned to the production of original content with considerable success. Netflix's "Stranger Things", Hulu's "Handmaid's Tale" and Amazon's "Wonderful Madame Maisel", to name but a few, are among the most popular series of recent years.
WarnerMedia has not published a comprehensive figure on what content it plans to offer with its new service. But it is possible to give an idea of the competitive landscape.
Reelgood, an aggregator of streaming services, analyzed the content offerings of the four major streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and HBO) to determine which offered the best value for subscribers . While many consumers think that Netflix is the place to go if they can only subscribe to one service, the company FAANG does not offer as much content as possible.
In terms of movies, Amazon Prime Video has a huge catalog that far surpasses all other platforms, with 10,731 movies streaming on the site, according to Reelgood. Netflix is in second place, but only has a third of that number, with 3,857 films in their library, a number that has been declining since at least 2016. There are 1,532 films in Hulu's library and 919 in HBO .
The scene is a bit different for TV shows, but Netflix is still not the winner. Last month, Hulu had a catalog of 1,784 shows, the largest number among the four platforms. Amazon Prime Video had 1,515 television series and Netflix 1,301, while HBO proposed only 169.
Of course, for some potential subscribers, the amount might not matter much. HBO Now charges the most – $ 14.99 per month – and offers the least content, but some giant hits such as "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld" might be enough to keep subscribers on the hook.
When you control quality, Netflix seems stronger. Reelgood has defined "high quality" content as a film or program frequently viewed by users of its platform. His scores were at least 7.5 for movies and 8.0 for broadcasts, coming from IMDb, a database of information on movies and television.
Under this standard, Netflix and Prime Video are bound by a supply of films of 105 high quality movies each. Hulu continues to dominate the television industry with 167 high-quality shows, but Netflix is not far behind with 158.
The situation could be very different in the years to come, after Disney and WarnerMedia join the game, backed by the huge media libraries that they have accumulated over the years.
There are many issues as the battle begins. According to the most recent data, Netflix has about 57 million US subscribers. Hulu, owned by Disney,
21st Century Fox
,
Comcast
,
and AT & T, has 20 million. And HBO Now has reported five million starting this year.
Write to Evie Liu at [email protected]
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