FX: Streamers surpass broadcasters in scripted originals for the first time

In 2018, SVOD services have surpassed broadcasters in the number of scripted originals on their platform for the first time, according to FX’s annual report on the television industry. 

Out of 495 scripted originals that aired in 2018, 160 of them did so on a streaming platform. This is compared to 146 on broadcast, 144 on basic cable and 45 on pay-TV.

Scripted originals on streamers also saw the biggest increase year-on-year, growing from 117 titles in 2017.

Broadcast originals took a slight downturn, dropping from 153 in 2017. Basic cable has the highest drop, from 175 last year, while pay-TV saw a very slight rise from 42 titles last year.

Streaming shows now account for approximately one third of all scripted originals at around 32%. Broadcast made up 30%, basic cable 29% and pay cable 9%.

The total number of shows has gone up by eight titles when compared to 2017, in which 487 scripted originals aired across channels and platforms.

FX boss John Landgraf initially predicted that near 520 shows would air this year, highlighting that growth was a little slower than expected at 495 titles.

The year-on-year growth was less than previous years. Between 2016 and 2017, the number of shows grew from 455 titles to 487.

Netflix originals demand to surpass licensed titles in 2019

New research by Parrot Analytics and Kagan forecasts that Netflix originals will become more demanded than licensed titles on its platform by October 2019.

Using Parrot’s demand expressions metric, which measures micro-expressions such as file-sharing or social media posts, the pair of companies compared the sum of US demand for Netflix original series and the licensed titles available on the US Netflix service each month.

While currently the most in-demand content tends to be licensed titles, the proportion of the demand share from Netflix original titles has generally grown month over month. Overall, for the 12 months analysed, the demand share for Netflix originals grew an average of 1% each month.

From July 2017 to June 2018, the streaming service’s reliance on licensed content dropped by 10.9%. Based on this 12 months of data, the report forecasts that Netflix will generate 50% of US audience content demand with its own original content from October 2019 onwards.

Overall, the report found demand for content on all major SVOD platforms, including Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime, and Starz, has increased over the past year.

For the premium channel VOD platforms (HBO Now, Showtime, and Starz), new content from their linear channels tends to be the most in-demand. However, Parrot Analytics’ affinity analysis – a measure of the relationship between two shows based on the number of people who watched both titles – reveals that the respective back catalogue of each VOD platform continues to play an important role, indicating that older titles likely remain an important driver of subscriber loyalty.