New challengers to Netflix and Amazon in the SVOD space of all sizes continue to grow. Show Tracker reveals that these SVOD challengers are the only services to have seen a growth in their acquisitions during the 2020/21 season, where most other types of service saw a reduction due to COVID.
Studio owned SVOD services are acquiring more scripted TV series than ever mirroring similar, albeit more pronounced, trends in their commissions this past fall season. Alongside this a growing number of SVODs outside both the studio space and the traditional streamers are increasing their acquisition activity. While many of these SVOD services are local only to a few markets, this does not mean they have zero plans for international expansion. This makeup of SVOD services differs greatly from region to region.
Studio SVODs dominate acquisitions in Latin America, creating an environment where D2C is set to become the norm. Europe also has a sizeable studio SVOD presence in the acquisition space, with SVOD services in total now acquiring more TV series than broadcasters. Much of this studio SVOD activity is buoyed by vertical integration, with Disney+ in particular ramping up its number of vertically integrated premieres through the launch of Star.
APAC has the largest proportion of non-studio SVOD buyers, with a mix of heavily active buyers like Nine Entertainment’s Stan in Australia as well as a mix of local SVODs such as Wavve in Korea or U-Next in Japan. Looking at the current TV season shows how many of these non-studio SVODs are owned by broadcasters, echoing the change in focus seen in many broadcasters to VOD only releases.
AMC’s current focus on growing its emerging SVOD bundle AMC+ has resulted in many acquisitions from UK distributors alongside co-commissions with UK services appearing on the service in the US and Canada. Outside these borders however most of the premiere activity is instead focused on its SVOD Acorn TV, which it owns through RLJ Entertainment.
With so much of the non-studio SVOD market dominated by broadcaster owned services a conclusion may be reached that lower levels of broadcast acquisitions are simply the result of a switching of focus on the part of broadcasters from linear to VOD. However a decline in total premieres can be seen across all broadcast owned services, linear or VOD, over the past few seasons. This trend is only likely to continue further as more studios engage in vertical integration than ever before, cutting off once reliable content pipelines to third party buyers, both linear and VOD.
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