Disney is pulling all their content from the major streaming services and putting it on their own subscription-based service.
CBS is offering Star Trek: Discovery exclusively on CBS All Access.
Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are steadily beginning to prioritise original content over licensed movies and TV.
Every content-owning company has something that fans want, and every company seems to be circling their wagons. I’m betting that in the next ten years, we’ll wind up with a system that looks more or less like a-la-carte cable.
Each channel (be it a traditional TV channel, or a streaming service) will offer their original content, plus a smattering of licensed content, for a low monthly price. And the best TV will be spread out over nine or ten different channels, so you’ll have to pick and choose what you get to watch. If you subscribe to them all, you’re looking at a monthly price tag that’s about even with your old cable bill.
And not too long after that, the content curation services will appear. Meta-streaming services that offer a selection of channels–from Netflix, to on-demand network TV, to old cable channels–at a discount, or “all for one low price”. And without missing a beat, we’ll be back to the cable TV model, only it’ll be delivered via internet, and it’ll all be on demand.
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Is there anyone out there who believes this won’t happen?
Peter T. McQueeny is the author of Jim Frankenstein, Rock and Roll Space Priest and blogger at How’s the Novel Coming.
