The 2019 streaming wars

Back in 1997, two entrepreneurs – Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph – sat in a coffee shop in LA, wondering if a DVD (then a brand new technology) could be sent through the post and arrive intact. They decided to find out, by mailing one to Reed’s home from the post office across the street. It arrived in perfect condition – and soon after, Netflix was born, said the Los Angeles Times. No longer would film-lovers have to trudge to the video shop to choose from one of the limited selection of movies on offer: instead, they could browse through a vast online catalogue, and have the disc sent to them.

In 2007, having shipped a billion DVDs, the firm moved into streaming films and TV shows under licence. Six years later, it started streaming “content” of its own, launching with House of Cards – the series that established it as a Hollywood-disrupting small-screen powerhouse. Then in 2016 it acquired Peter Morgan’s The Crown for a reported $100m, which helped it to go global, said The Daily Telegraph. Last year, Netflix spent some $3bn on its own programming, and it continues to attract big-screen talent.

This year, Martin Scorsese made his gangster drama The Irishman for Netflix, after Paramount apparently baulked at its projected cost and running time. Reuniting Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, it tells the story of the disappearance of the notorious union boss Jimmy Hoffa. Other film highlights included The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh’s comedy-drama based on the leaking of the Panama Papers, and the Golden Globe-nominated The Two Popes. There was also a treat for fans of Breaking Bad (which became an early binge-watching success for Netflix when it acquired the first four seasons in 2011) with the release of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. It starts moments after the TV series’ final episode ended, with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) fleeing for his life, and features some of the series’ stars (including Bryan Cranston) in flashback.

Netflix typically cancels its TV series within one to three seasons. But this year saw the release of the fifth season of Grace and Frankie (main picture). With two more due, the comedy-drama is Netflix’s longest-running original show. Sharp, touching and unpredictable, it stars Jane Fonda as the glamorous, uptight Grace, and Lily Tomlin as the hippy Frankie – who end up forming an odd-couple friendship after their husbands (Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen) declare that they’ve been in love with each other for years, and want to get married. This year also saw the release of a second season of the binge-worthy US high school drama On My Block. Set in South Central LA, it’s like The OC with a threat of violence, said the Radio Times. And in May, Netflix released season three of the French series

Call My Agent! Following a group of highly strung talent agents in Paris, and featuring guest appearances by the likes of Jean Dujardin and Juliette Binoche, it’s a “comedy gem”, said The Guardian. The third season of Stranger Things was a hit, watched in a record 64 million households. And in the increasingly important global TV market, Netflix scored with Money Heist (La Casa de Papel). The Spanish crime drama, now in its third season, is currently Netflix’s most successful non-English-language programme.

Among its best new shows in 2019 was Sex Education, starring Gillian Anderson as a sex therapist whose socially awkward son (Asa Butterfield) goes into business on his own. More idiosyncratic was Russian Doll, a compelling comedydrama about a woman who keeps dying – like Groundhog Day, only darker. With a standout performance from its co-creator, Natasha Lyonne, it is a series that rewards persistence, said The Independent. More recently, Netflix launched Unbelievable, an eight-part US drama based on a true story about what happened to a teenager after she was raped by an intruder. Neither gratuitous nor exploitative, it is so powerful and bleak, it leaves you reeling, said The Daily Telegraph. Similarly shocking is When They See Us –a dramatisation of the “wilding” case that led to five African-American boys being falsely convicted of a brutal attack on a woman in Central Park in 1989. In a further sign of its might, Netflix this year also produced Our Planet – narrated by that BBC stalwart, David Attenborough.

“Last year, Netflix spent some $3bn on its own programming”

But for Netflix, times are about to get harder. Having proved the demand for streamed TV, the great disrupter is facing a host of challengers, from Amazon, which is pouring money into Prime Video, to Disney and Apple, which have just launched subscription services of their own, with HBO to follow next year (in the US). Disney+ (coming to the UK in spring) has a vast back catalogue of well-loved films to lure viewers, not to mention the Marvel and Star Wars franchises; Apple TV+ is going for quality over quantity, with a small collection of shows with big name stars (though it got off to a bad start when The Morning Show, a glossy drama set in a TV studio, and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, was mauled by the critics). For Netflix, this means not just more competition for subscribers, but the prospect of losing popular shows, as their original broadcasters put them on their own services, or sell them to a higher bidder.

This autumn, the BBC and ITV also stepped up their fightback by launching BritBox – which streams British TV – in the UK. The BBC has also been redesigning its iPlayer, to attract younger viewers in particular. New programmes will remain on it for 12 months by default (up from 30 days); and increasingly, entire series will be “dumped” when the first episode is shown on terrestrial, to allow binge-watching. Of the 2019 crop still streaming on iPlayer, the highlights include What We Do in the Shadows, a comedy-horror about three vampires who share a flat in New York. A spin-off from the 2014 film, it’s “silly”, but “dry and deadpan”, and brilliantly written, said The Guardian. Another import is Pose – set in New York’s underground LGBT “ball culture” in the 1980s, said The Independent. Produced by Glee’s Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, it’s brash and baroque, but also “profound and sensitive”: it may “break your heart”.

Peaky Blinders, the BBC’s Birmingham-set gangster saga, returned for a “terrific” fifth series, said The Daily Beast – and established itself as a global phenomenon, thanks to it also being licenced to Netflix. The Victim is a “well-crafted” legal drama – with echoes of the James Bulger case – that takes as its starting point a revenge attack on a suspected child-murderer, now living under an assumed identity. It makes good use of its Edinburgh locations, said The Independent, and has a strong cast in James Harkness, Kelly Macdonald and John Hannah. The second season of Fleabag (a co-production with Amazon Studios – pictured top right) launched to much fanfare this year, featuring Andrew Scott as the “hot priest” – and was then lauded at the Emmys. Anyone who only caught the start of season one, and thought Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s show was just a bawdy comedy about masturbation and sex toys, should take another look, said

The Guardian. Fleabag is devastating, electrifying television. For children, the BBC has His Dark Materials. Fans of Philip Pullman’s book were disappointed by the big screen adaption in 2007. This version – backed by HBO money, and starring James McAvoy and Ruth Wilson – was much better received.

Homegrown talent was also to the fore on Channel 4’s All 4, with The Virtues. Co-written by Shane Meadows and starring Stephen Graham, it is about a father facing up to life without his young son, who has moved with his mother to Australia. Graham is a brilliant actor, said The Daily Telegraph: maybe too good, in this case. Watching him suffering, and trying to deal with his suffering, is almost unbearable. Among its lighter fare, All 4 has Kathy Burke’s All Woman, which sees the comedian tour the country, asking other women – from Love Island contestants to grime artists – what a woman should be. Frank about her own life, Burke injects moments of “delightful lewdness” to stop it all being too worthy. Finally, This Way Up, written by and starring the Irish comedian Aisling Bea, has taken years to get to the screen – and it was well worth waiting for. “Growing in stature and confidence by the episode, gorgeously directed and smartly soundtracked, This Way Up finished as one of the best new shows of the year.”

With all the talk about Fleabag, it may have gone unnoticed that Sky scooped ten Emmys for the “gripping” Chernobyl (streaming on Now TV), said the Daily Mail. The five-part drama (pictured bottom right) about the 1986 nuclear disaster follows the Soviet scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) as he tries to convince officials that millions of lives are at risk. Now TV also has Das Boot, said The Guardian, a “thrilling” German TV series inspired by the 1973 anti-war film. Jesse Armstrong’s Bafta-winning Succession, about a media tycoon (Brian Cox) and his family, delivered a second series. It is not yet available on Now TV – but is well worth looking out for.

For viewers, the streaming wars will have costs and benefits. Rival firms are pouring billions into programming to keep and win subscribers. Netflix has bought the rights to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, and recently paid $500m for the rights to Seinfeld. Amazon continues to show the hugely popular NBC drama This is Us; it has acquired the rights to Lord of the Rings; and this year struck a rumoured $20m-a-year deal for Phoebe Waller-Bridge to devise new shows for it. All this could mean ever better television. It could also mean higher prices for each service, and pressure on viewers to sign up to more of them. The question “Where can I watch it?” is likely to become ever more fraught.