Netflix, HBO, and Disney income present the streaming growth is over

Right here’s a regular streaming TV joke/grievance: There are such a lot of totally different companies that somebody ought to simply put all of them collectively, and then you definately’d simply pay one month-to-month payment for every thing. You recognize, identical to cable TV!

Ho ho ho.

The factor is, not one of the individuals working streaming TV companies assume there are going to be a ton of TV companies sooner or later. They assume they may finally consolidate into a number of huge gamers.

We’re already seeing a few of that, which is why Warner Brothers Discovery is on the point of launch a yet-to-be-named service that may mash up HBO Max and Discovery Plus, which implies you’ll be capable of pay for White Lotus and Dr. Pimple Popper with one month-to-month invoice. Cautious what you want for!

Within the meantime, when you take a look at Wall Avenue earnings reviews, you’ll be able to see fairly clearly why standard trade knowledge is that the trade goes to get smaller, a minimum of by way of suppliers: It’s actually, actually costly to run a streamer, particularly initially.

And when you don’t wish to dig by way of public filings, don’t fear, we’ve accomplished it for you. Right here’s a fast snapshot of the cash Netflix made within the first 9 months of 2022, and the cash lots of the would-be Netflixes misplaced:

There are some caveats right here, together with the truth that we’re utilizing barely totally different definitions of income and losses for every streamer as a result of they every use totally different ones of their filings. Add to that the truth that Warner Bros. Discovery’s whole is decrease than it must be as a result of we solely had two quarters of information accessible for this chart.

However the huge image is that there’s a ton of purple ink, and there can be a lot, far more if we 1) went again additional as a result of a few of these companies have been bleeding cash for a number of years and a couple of) might see the P&Ls of Apple and Amazon, that are burning huge piles of cash on streaming however are so huge that it doesn’t matter to them or their buyers (for now).

This chart additionally explains why exhibits you like (however different individuals don’t) are more likely to disappear now than they have in the past: A few years in the past, Wall Avenue was telling media firms that they need to emulate Netflix and fear about progress, not losses. That modified final yr, for Netflix and for everyone else. Now, Netflix founder Reed Hastings preaches the deserves of working revenue, and his opponents are speaking about rationalizing prices.

Streaming isn’t going away. Knowledge agency Ampere Evaluation predicts international content material spending will hit $243 billion this yr. That’s a 2 % enhance, and it’s down fairly a bit from the 6 % progress we noticed in 2022. Nevertheless it’s approach, approach up from the $128 billion we noticed a decade in the past. You’re nonetheless going to have a number of alternative for a very long time.