The first edition of C21’s quarterly Content Business Trends Report launches this week, with a new instalment each day looking at the biggest trends our team has identified in the course of our coverage of the content business.

The biggest trend impacting the international content industry needs no introduction, as the effect of all the new US studio-backed global streaming platforms continues to upend the traditional programme distribution ecosystem.

The seismic shift in strategy among the Hollywood majors is having enormous repercussions throughout the international industry. As well as overhauling their own companies, as the new direct-to-consumer (D2C) streaming strategy sees studios’ entire distribution divisions forced to the periphery along with their linear networks, they have impacted third-party broadcasters the world over. The clients/competitors that used to rely on a supply of studio content are not only having to find new sources but are finding that premium US content is appearing on studio-backed rival streamers in their own local markets.

Distributors are also finding new clients as traditional supply lines get shaken up and new and hungry streamers roll out across the globe, because even with the fattest programming pipeline from Hollywood, those new platforms all need local product too.

And all this is happening against a backdrop of pandemic-driven production shutdowns, locked-in audiences turning to OTT in droves and broadcasters in the linear space suffering advertising downturns and huddling together with other legacy players to combine budgets in an effort to compete.

The challenge facing the traditional broadcasting system is finding new content suppliers that can replace the big-budget US shows they are no longer getting, with the apparent beneficiaries being other suppliers from the Anglosphere. Also, the move by the Hollywood majors to ringfence their own shows is accelerating a trend that has been seen in the market for years: networks worldwide being forced into local production and coproduction – pandemic permitting.

The other big question that remains is whether the production studios currently enjoying a spike in demand will eventually follow suit as they roll out their own streamers globally. The commercial imperative that drove the Hollywood studios towards D2C applies to everyone, after all, and buyers might find their new suppliers, like their old ones, can switch from content partner to streaming competitor overnight.

Brad Danks, CEO, OutTV
If your business is reliant on acquisitions, particularly from the big studios, you’re more vulnerable. The really big shift is that all the premium shows are now going straight to the streaming platforms. We’ve seen that with Disney+ with The Mandalorian and we’ve seen it with Hamilton. We’re now seeing it with some of the other streaming services. This is going to take down most of the traditional broadcasting systems, because the better product is now going to be on the streaming services, which is going to accelerate cord-cutting. So if you’re not preparing for the future where those companies are going to be holding on to their rights, you’re going to really struggle.

Andrew Shaw, consultant, former TVNZ buyer
I finished my term as the buyer for TVNZ in June 2020. There’s a lot less to buy these days. The fact is that every studio you used to rely on selling their content outside of North America to the world is now holding those rights, whether it’s HBO Max, Paramount+ or whoever, everybody is hanging on to it. So there’s an awful lot less content to buy. Interestingly, that’s coincided, certainly in the last two years, with a significant decline in the attractiveness of US crime dramas and sitcoms in New Zealand. People’s habits have changed, driven by the bold creative statements made by the streamers and by an upsurge in local content. And that will continue.

Mark Oliver, chairman, Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates
If more global rights deals are being done effectively by maintaining content on the studios’ streaming platforms, the amount of material available to national broadcast and national platforms bought in from the US is going to shrink in quantity, and probably quality. In the short term, that can lead to a spike in prices because people still need to fill their schedules and there is less supply available. The distributors that do have content will see a spike on top of the Covid spike, because people need to fill their schedules quickly, leading to a bit of a golden period in programme distribution.

Jack Davison, executive VP, 3Vision
As direct-to-consumer efforts have grown in size and significance, like with Disney+, the influence on programme distribution is much greater. But each studio’s activity varies quite a bit by market. There is a bit of a mixture in terms of what’s going on, but there is no question it’s changing. It can only present an opportunity for independent distributors. On the one hand, these services are licensing content from third parties so there’s an opportunity to sell to these players. Also, as they increasingly withhold their content, that’s going to leave a hole in the other services that can’t be filled alone by original productions and they’ll need to look for acquisitions.

Bruce Tuchman, co-chairman, Rialto International
Companies that put their own content exclusively on their streaming platforms do so because they have made a huge investment in those streamers. In the short term, they acknowledge they will make less money but hope to reap the benefits in the long term. However, a great model of success in the streaming world does not yet exist as the space is too new. Believing your business will grow enough to compensate for the loss of short-term cash is a risky and cocky strategy. It takes things off the table for those studios’ long-term customers. For decades, third parties have had output deals with them and now content is being pulled away. For these third-party channels and businesses, it is going to be tougher. Strong and solid partnerships could fray and fall apart.

Walter Iuzzolino, co-founder and curator, Walter Presents
Content needs to circulate and to be packaged, repackaged, disseminated and distributed. At the moment, I can see that content owners are thinking, ‘This is mine, don’t touch it.’ But it will be tricky if you erect too high a fence because it means in three or four years’ time everyone will be trying to compete with the big verticals. Everyone will want their own content and for it to go global, and so another person will make that content as well and want it to go global too. That can’t be sustained for a very long period of time.

Louise Pedersen, CEO, All3Media International
US studios launching their owns streamers is a big opportunity for us. First of all, doing deals with those platforms. They have vast libraries but they are usually also interested in a local offering too. So in the UK, for example, they might be interested in some local British shows that they might not be getting from their primarily American libraries. But also, as those studio-backed services bring their content back to their own platforms, there are other local and global SVoD platforms that need fresh content too, in order to fill the gap. So it’s a two-pronged opportunity.

Dermot Horan, director of coproductions and acquisitions, RTÉ
One of the biggest challenges for buyers in 2021 is if more and more content goes directly to the consumer on a vertically integrated VoD service like Disney+. A lot of US drama hasn’t been landing as well as it was in the past. The days of European broadcasters putting 22-part US crime dramas in primetime are long gone, except in cable channels like Sky Witness. But what we’re more interested in from the States is shorter, high-profile shows. Thankfully, we’re still able to do quite a lot of those shows as HBO Max isn’t yet available in the UK and Ireland. We’ve also got used to the fact a lot of US programming isn’t available to us, due to Sky’s deals with HBO and Showtime. Disney+ would be a case in point, particularly with movies. It is getting more complicated but it does give British content an opportunity.