TBI Weekly: How streaming chaos has created a buyers paradise

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Not too long ago, it was almost unthinkable that an international streaming service would ever let one of its original titles appear on a rival platform.

But the growth-at-any-cost bubble has burst; profits and revenues are down, costs are being cut and now studios and streamers have changed their strategies from chasing subscribers to chasing revenue – and content is beginning to travel.

We are now a week past London Screenings, but developments in the days following, have clearly illustrated one of the major talking points of the market – growing streamer flexibility around show rights and the potential end to global deals.

This newfound flexibility is creating opportunities for buyers to get their hands on audience-driving content that formerly seemed forever locked out of reach, but, paradoxically, also indicates that the original commissioners no longer see this content as being as valuable when solely confined to their own platform.

From popular originals finding new homes to evergreen legacy titles landing on competing platforms, TBI explains what’s really going on behind all the content movement over the past seven days.

Sex And The City

Sex And A Different City

Let’s begin with one of the most-widely publicised moves – that of iconic HBO romantic comedy-drama series Sex And The City launching on Netflix.

The global streamer picked up US rights to the HBO legacy hit earlier this year and this week announced that it will launch on 1 April.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) will still continue to stream Sex And The City on its Max service, along with ongoing spin-off show And Just Like That… with WBD clearly seeing potential profit in the rights deal – and expanding the audience beyond its own platform.

The move is reflective of other US studio’s rising appetite to sell some of their most popular titles to the streaming giant in order to boost their revenues. Netflix previously acquired HBO shows Ballers and The Pacific from WBD last year, though those were not ‘live’ franchises.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO, has previously stated that the streamer’s reach can sometimes “uniquely add more value to the studio’s IP than they can.” Indeed, USA Network’s legal drama Suits found new life on Netflix, with NBC eyeing a spin-off based upon its resurgent success.

Though whether Sex And The City needs a leg up is debatable. The show, which wrapped in 2004, went on to spawn two movies and the aforementioned sequel series, which has a third season in the works, keeping it firmly in the public consciousness.

Rebus (Source: BBC, Mark Mainz, Eleventh Hour Films)

Rehoming content

Netflix also announced this week that it will be picking up Norwegian comedy drama Pørni for a fourth and fifth season.

The show was originally commissioned for embattled Nordic streamer Viaplay, but as the firm looks to right the ship amid large financial losses, it has had let go of exclusive rights to many of its existing and upcoming originals.

The new seasons of Pørni will debut on Netflix, which has also acquired seasons one through three. The deal comes just a few months after Netflix revealed it would debut Ronja, The Robbers Daughter, the live action adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s classic Swedish tale, that had been originally commissioned for Viaplay.

And just last month, Amazon streamer Prime Video in the Nordics acquired nine series originally destined for Viaplay, including new seasons of ongoing originals such as Furia and Those Who Kill.

This week also saw UK public broadcaster the BBC acquire crime drama Rebus. That too had been originally destined for Viaplay – in-fact it had been the Nordic streamer’s first UK commission – but has now moved to the BBC as Viaplay is pulling out of the UK as part of plans to downsize its operations and costs.

Viaplay’s loss is becoming the gain of others, as some of its top-performing and most-anticipated titles are currently being grabbed up by both rival services at home and larger international players abroad.

Pørni (Source: Viaplay)

Sharing shows

However, those larger international players are also increasingly willing to part with their exclusive content too. French broadcaster M6 is launching a new streaming service, M6+, and has gone shopping for second-window rights for popular SVOD shows to populate it, bagging Prime Video’s The Marvelous Mrs Maisel this week.

Amazon has been increasingly looking to sell its Prime Video originals, with WBD last month taking two flagship unscripted shows – The Grand Tour and Clarkson’s Farm – for its linear networks in Europe.

The online retail giant revealed it would start selling its originals last year with the creation of Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, led by Chris Ottinger.

Prime Video’s rights flexibility was further demonstrated this week in a deal announced with Fox, that will see episodes of the Amazon streamer’s version of quiz show format The 1% Club airing on the US network eight days after their streaming debut.

While affiliated streamers and networks, such as Disney+ and ABC, have previously shared programming it is unusual to have a third-party network picking up rights – and just goes to demonstrate the new and evolving approach to business that is becoming ever more commonplace.