USA TODAY International Edition
As pandemic goes on, what’s next for video?
Phones and homes will host our viewing in 2021
The coronavirus upended every aspect of our lives in 2020, and the film and TV industries were not immune.
The global pandemic, and our collective quarantine, created the video industry’s great “in home” or “out- ofhome” divide where major streaming services including Netflix blossomed as our neighborhood movie theaters withered.
Make no mistake, the trend already had emerged – the pandemic just accelerated it. Here’s what to expect in a new year we hope erases much of the memory of this past one:
We are now firmly ensconced on our living room couches, and that won’t change anytime soon.
Subscription streaming services, led by Netflix, will serve as both our companions and “comfort food” during the cold winter months. Their big challenge will be to dish up fresh compelling new programming throughout the year, because production of our favorite shows essentially has been shut down for months. Somehow, Netflix will find a way to serve us a continuing plate of palatable – if not always delicious – content.
Sure, Netflix won’t be able to spend its annual $ 16 billion to $ 17 billion content budget as the lockdown continues, but an endless stream of new documentaries – much more easily produced remotely – will keep us occupied. Expect fewer new episodes of your favorite series, however.
Amazon Prime Video – Jeff Bezos’ gift to keep us engaged and “Primed” to shop – will be our second bestie as we increasingly depend on Amazon home deliveries. Meanwhile, Disney+, the world’s best babysitter, will continue to get us hooked with its exclusive franchise favorites ( including the Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel universes). Mickey
Mouse’s streaming service should cross the 100 million paid subscriber mark in 2021 – a remarkable feat for a 1- year- old service.
Amid these streaming wars, this year’s new entrants HBO Max and Peacock must find a way to breakout. We have only so much money to spend, after all – especially now – and subscription fatigue does set in at some point.
Where does that leave the traditional players?
Cable and broadcast TV, already reeling from audiences’ cutting of the cord before the pandemic, will face even greater challenges in 2021. Live news and sports are their lifeblood to compete with the streamers. But with no presidential election that kept us obsessively glued to our favorite polarizing channel this year – and maybe no sports either because of rising infection rates – we will turn less to them. Not good news for them, and not good news for advertisers who can’t reach us on our subscription streaming services.
Meanwhile, most of us won’t venture out of our homes to see our favorite movies anytime soon, and theaters will continue to feel the pain and strive simply to survive. With government assistance yet to arrive, things look bleak, certainly for the first half of the year.
Don’t be surprised if Netflix or Ama
zon step in where the federal government hasn’t to pick off ailing indie theaters. The studios certainly haven’t helped the cause of theaters either, as virtually all the majors now – for the first time – release their mega- budget franchise films directly to our homes for streaming on day one.
Call this the pandemic effect. What started with Universal Studios’ singular “Trolls World Tour” experiment led to Disney’s “Hamilton” and “Mulan” one
two gut punch to the industry – and will end the year with the season’s most anticipated film, WarnerMedia’s “Wonder Woman 1984,” which arrived in homes Christmas Day.
The new normal in streaming
Speaking of Warner, to add insult to theater injury, the studio just ended the year announcing what previously was unthinkable – its cataclysmic decision to release its entire 2021 slate of feature films directly into our homes on HBO Max on Day One. In so doing, Warner shattered decades old rules of the game that gave theaters exclusivity for several months.
Certainly homebound audiences will cheer ( and give HBO Max a major marketing boost in the process). But many industry players won’t. And now that this genie is out of the bottle, it isn’t going back.
In- home release is the new normal, and theaters will be largely relegated to playing only franchise superhero movies for teen and 20- something audiences. The only good news for theaters is that vaccines are coming soon, which means that doors should open and welcome real crowds again in the second half of the year.
Finally, smartphones – our 24/ 7 constant companions during good times and bad ( and we certainly had a lot of bad this year) – will entertain us with video more than ever in 2021. But don’t expect Quibi to do the trick. That highly anticipated service which featured pricey Hollywood- style storytelling came and went in less than six months. Rather, good old- fashioned no- cost usergenerated video on TikTok and Instagram will do the trick and give us the escapism we need.
And 5G’s relentless takeover of our lives will only accelerate that trend.