Streaming Services Are Facing Identity Crisis, Research Shows (advanced-television.com) 68
Streaming platforms are increasingly indistinguishable to consumers despite high brand awareness, according to Hub Entertainment Research. The annual Evolution of Video Branding report shows major services like Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and Max experiencing year-over-year declines in viewers' ability to articulate what makes each platform unique.
Fewer consumers (37% in 2025, down from 41% in 2023) report signing up for services to watch specific shows, while many can't correctly identify where signature programs like Game of Thrones or The Bear can be viewed. While 58% know Stranger Things streams on Netflix, less than half can properly place other major titles.
Fewer consumers (37% in 2025, down from 41% in 2023) report signing up for services to watch specific shows, while many can't correctly identify where signature programs like Game of Thrones or The Bear can be viewed. While 58% know Stranger Things streams on Netflix, less than half can properly place other major titles.
Disney+ (Score:2)
That may be true for the others, but Disney+ is pretty obviously for fans of Disney/Pixar movies, Disney Channel kids content, Star Wars, and Marvel. (Yes, they have Doctor Who and some other random content.)
Oh, and isn't Disney+ the original '+' streaming service?
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Disney+ is pretty obviously for fans of Disney/Pixar movies, Disney Channel kids content
I think you can stop there. People who are unable to identify Game of Thrones with HBO seem equally unlikely to be aware that Disney bought Lucasfilm or Marvel. Or The Muppets, or 20th Century Fox, or any of the other things that Disney has swallowed.
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They're really indecisive about their branding. It was previously called HBO Max, before that it was HBO Go, and it was "HBO on demand" before that. I think besides the branding changes, the service itself changed several times. IIRC they offered several of these services concurrently.
No clue what the difference is, and I was even working in that industry (streaming and broadcast TV) at the time.
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Hello, there! How is the Paranoid Personality Disorder treatment going? Are you taking your Xanax prescription on schedule, as the doctor instructed?
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Pretty fine, all things considered. Also, did you know only closeted gays care about others' homosexuality, ~hmmm~?
There's no difference. All are product of greed (Score:2)
There's no difference. All of them are the product of greed.
They saw what Netflix was doing and wanted that slice of pie for themselves, so they took their content and made their own streamers... which are now bleeding cash hand over fist.
But to be fair, there's one streamer that's head and shoulders worse than all the others, and it's HiDive.
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> HiDive
Why do you say it's worse? I was just contemplating a subscription for DANMACHI dubs.
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the UI for appleTV has been a mess for years, and an update 2 years ago broke it even harder.
Then, that disease spread to all the other HiDive "apps" for Roku, TVs, gaming consoles, etc.
The only thing that "kinda" works is the website, and even that has trouble remembering where you are in any given ep, has trouble with subtitles..
It's like AMC doesn't care.
Er how? (Score:3)
Netflix has the best UI.
Every other streaming service has a shit UI, because every other streaming service seems to be focused on their upsell.
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other streaming service seems to be focused on their upsell
You mean like the big fat "game on mobile" that we see on Netflix while using a PC, covering the whole window, where you have to scroll down to start seeing the actual streamable shit? Or the fact that Netflix usually does not show stuff that you marked as "not interesting" but still does it for games?
Netflix has the best UI.
Is that because of the simplified lists that only show what Neflix believes you might be interested in (you just watch a WWII movie, let me fill half the lists with other WWII movies), without allowing you to
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Of course, we like the next day delivery service :):).
"Next Day" has recently become 3 or 4 day.
Same price, at least.
Strong Disagree on Netflix UI (Score:2)
For my use of a streaming service UI, there's only one thing I really care about - independent reviews.
Link me to IMDB, or rotten tomatoes, or something like that for reviews, please.
Colbert and daily Show (Score:2)
These two are on paramount plus
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Not yet.
Give it a few months, I think Paramount is up for sale.
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Not yet.
Give it a few months, I think Paramount is up for sale.
Yellowstone and 1883, two of Paramount's hit streaming series, already now on Netflix. What's the betting Netflix buys them?
Star Trek (Score:2)
I associate Paramount+ with Star Trek. Don't they have like a dozen different new Trek series? They might as well rename themselves "Star Trek+" and be done with it.
Actually, it would be funny if Disney bought the Star Trek franchise and added it to Disney+. Considering that they already have Marvel, Star Wars, and Doctor Who, it wouldn't be a terrible idea.
Shouldn't be surprising (Score:2)
This shouldnt be surprising as original content is pretty much the one thing that makes most streaming services unique and most streaming services are scaling back on their original content. It's the same thing with TV channels, if all they're doing is showing what everyone else is showing then what's the difference?
If they want to stand out from the crowd they actually have to do something to do so.
It isn't an "identity crisis" (Score:3)
They all know pretty well who they are.
What they lack is something else and it is called "product differentiation". It is also very easy to explain why.
All hold (or lease in some form from the holder) a portfolio of the so-called "intellectual property rights", which has to be monetized. This puts a rather high barrier to any creativity that might want to try to grow through the big icons.
There are only a few big names who act as if they own everything, which limits competition severely. So, no fresh players with new ideas.
All big names are spectacularly risk-averse and will not stray from the "tried and proven" formulistic crap based on things the people who produced the first iteration of their "content" came up with decades ago. So no fresh players with new ideas.
Where would differentiation come from?
And why don't the journalists know the proper words?
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Old? Jaded? (Score:5, Insightful)
I must be old and/or jaded. I don't want to watch most of what I find on streaming. I don't want to have 5 services to watch the 5 shows I might be interested in - looks like cable all over again. We need shows a-la-carte, not channels.
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We need shows a-la-carte, not channels.
Good news: both iTunes and Amazon still sell many of them in this way. Not all of them, of course (infuriatingly, Apple still won't sell episodes of For All Mankind as episode downloads, despite the existence of Blu-Ray releases...), but many can still be purchased this way.
Re:Old? Jaded? (Score:4)
I think buying a season of a show on Amazon costs as much as a month of streaming service, not a great value.
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Especially if you're already paying for that streaming service. I can't believe you don't at least get a discount for the non-covered show. Who's gonna pay a separate cost for an Amazon show when they're already paying for Amazon?
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If it's the only show you care about, it's a fantastic value.
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Has buying shows gotten that cheap?
I'd happily pay that.
Last I purchased a show it was $3/episode, so $36-$60 depending on the show.
I'd happily pay $1 episode.
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The problem with a -la-carte, is that it's always more expensive than bundles. This is true whether it's a restaurant menu, or streaming.
Besides, a-la-carte would mean you have to create an account on every single show's private website, and who wants to do that!
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Why would it mean that? I can buy games on Steam a-la-carte despite Game Pass existing. Why would the same kind of system not work for movies and TV shows?
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You can also buy movies and TV shows a-la-carte on Amazon and other platforms. We're talking about streaming platforms here, not purchasing content.
And when you buy those movies and TV shows a-la-carte on Amazon, you'll pay more than if you subscribed to a streaming service that offered the same shows.
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It is all about maximizing profits. These companies squeeze the real fans and block out everyone else. There are shows I would pay to watch, but not in the way they are offered. I'm not signing up for another service to watch one show, and I'm not paying the extorsion prices on Amazon. Shows miss out on me as a viewer when they ask too much, their loss.
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It is all about maximizing profits.
You are aware that's what businesses are for right?
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Do you make 25% more than you did two years ago? I don't either. But Disney+ does: https://www.dealnews.com/featu... [dealnews.com].
Like I said, it is cable all over again. Keep paying more and more, while getting more ads, and watching less over time. What justifies these costs?
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Imagine a world where it wasn't, though.
Obviously businesses need to be profitable or they stop existing, but imagine if there was a point where they said "Profitable enough" and started focusing on other things as well.
Exclusive broadcasting deals are idiotic (Score:2)
I will pay for 1 and only 1 streaming service, with the exception of Amazon prime where I am paying for free shipping and get TV and movies as an perk. But straight up paying for service, one company and one company only will get my money. If someone wants me to watch their content legitimately, put it on that service or either don't get it watch, or I'll watch it for free in ways that piss them off even more than demanding it be on a service they aren't on. These are non-negotiable statements.
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Exclusive broadcast deals just means that one streaming service has a few good items over the year and a lot of garbage.
They probably know what's attracting subscribers so they can run a short appealing well done series for a while and then scrap it for being "unprofitable" and then run profits from subscribers signing up for a year just providing junk or re-runs of mediocre 80's soap operas.
Lesson from the music industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Which has actually figured out streaming better already. Outside of new releases that maybe hit Spotify first is there any major music label that is exclusive to a streamer? There are podcasts and there there used to be some gaps years ago with some major artists (I remember first using TY Music that Tool and I think Zeppelin were not yet on there) but I think that's pretty rare today.
If you have Spotify or Apple Music or YouTube Music or whatever, chances are you have access to what you are looking for and the services compete on features and user experience.
I've said it before but we need a Paramount Decree for streamers. You can produce content or you can distribute content but you can't do both. All content (after a short exclusive period) has to be made licensable for anyone at a reasonable price (as in you can't keep an exclusive through high prices). Think of the streamers like a sports team, they have $XX.XX dollars to spend, put together a roster of content that is compelling enough for people to subscribe, make your service the easiest to use. Don't just rely on rent-seeking your exclusives.
As much as they'll fight it maybe regulation is what this industry actually needs, they'll never make significant business model changes on their own, as we see with MAX they'll sooner take the ball and go home.
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Producing music doesn't cost much though. Producing good TV is expensive. It's not clear if the economics of licencing TV shows to other streaming services will work out. I think at best we would end up with something like cable TV, where you get annoying bundles of channels, and ads.
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It's not clear if the economics of licensing TV shows to other streaming services will work out.
Sure but that's reflected to the end user, my music streaming cost is proportionally less money then my TV streaming costs.
It worked for decades when we just called it syndication, you sell broadcast rights for a show to a network and then the network can sell the ads from playing the show or film. That has been happening for so long that everyone in the industry understands what a reasonable license costs where the producer makes money to cover their production costs. I am not expecting producers to lose
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Sporttify Premium is £12/month, which seems pretty much on par with streaming video services these days.
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Yup and for that that mere $15-ish you get access to nearly all music produced in the last 70 years instantly on demand and ad-free. If there was a video streaming service for 4x-5x the cost that offered the same I think most people would be subscribed as well. Instead you could spend that much on say 4 services today and still be missing a ton of media, I think that's what we are getting salty about.
The economics might be bad for the video companies to have that model but that also could mean their model
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You could be right. If say YouTube had everything I'd pay 30 a month for it, sure.
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...where you get annoying bundles of channels, and ads.
That is exactly why Cable TV has seen such an extreme exodus. And price increases are why so many of us do the streaming channel shuffle. Hell, I canceled Netflix after being a non-stop customer for 17-18 years.
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Which has actually figured out streaming better already.
Maybe for the consumer, but definitely not the artist. Music is almost entirely like the pop-schlock of the 80s, but this time with no room for new bands.
There but for the Will and Grace of God... (Score:2)
what we wanted, what we got (Score:5, Insightful)
What we wanted: standards-based, platform-agnostic systems which allow us to rent content a la carte and have payment managed by whichever service we found convenient.
What we got: a big fuck you
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We used to have that. It was called "retail stores", with the catch that you got to own what you bought and use it forever.
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So, like in democracy, people got what they deserved.
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So, like in democracy, people got what they deserved.
Like democracy, the people who know have to live with the decisions made by the people who don't.
The only things that... (Score:2)
...make each brand "unique" are the inconsistent UI functions
In this case, unique is not good, it's more like maddening and frustrating
Shocking! (Score:2)
Re: Shocking! (Score:2)
It's not an identity crisis (Score:2)
Back in the days when Sci-Fi was all about Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, that was the identity. It worked decently, right up until you had idiots in charge start to put things like CSI and other programming on there. The lack of a focus on Science Fiction/Fantasy original programming made it so many people drifted away, why bother keeping the channel on when half of the programming wasn't what it was about. Stupid fake wrestling just ended the desire to keep it on just to see what low budget disaste
This is a good thing (Score:2)
The more you can get the same content on all the streaming platforms, the easier it is to shop by price or service. I've noticed a lot of "syndication" going on, you no longer have to subscribe to a specific service, to get some of the more popular shows.
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I've noticed a lot of "syndication" going on, you no longer have to subscribe to a specific service, to get some of the more popular shows.
Really? I have noticed the opposite.
Years ago Netflix had *everything*. Today, for every show/movie I have to know who is the distributor and sign-up for their site. Over the last 3 years my wife and I have gone from one streaming service to 5 because of this problem. I've put my foot down and said "no more subscriptions" which has cut me off from some of my own favorite franchises because they are yet on other services.
The only overlap I see is with Amazon Prime, which I don't count s overlap because I
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It certainly depends on your tastes, and what you mean by "popular." Yes, it's true that Netflix went from having "everything" to just mainly their own stuff. But the kind of stuff that would be syndicated in the classic TV world, does tend to show up on multiple services.
None of them consistently support surround sound (Score:2)
None of them consistently support surround sound. That is one way they can distinguish. If I want surround sound, I have to buy the DVD or Blu-ray.
Most of their apps are just browser wrappers, and sometimes the browser-based version is superior to the app. (Ex: Broader platform support, surround sound working in the browser but not the app, app updates causing temporary breakings so I fall back to the browser).
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None of them consistently support surround sound. That is one way they can distinguish..
Never had an issue on Netflix or Prime.
Good (Score:2)
I don’t want so called "platforms" to be unique.
If you are going to have a stab at succeeding at replacing traditional broadcast TV, and they (the streaming services) already failed partly as they can’t avoid advertising anymore so the main component of their service and the main motivation people have to move to them is increasingly redundant, then you are going to have to unify the services.
They must all be accessible via ONE UI, one UX and ONE SUBSCRIPTION. None of this faff about multiple su