The intentions of major studios with D2C services, in terms of who they make content for, have been “laid bare” in the words of Ampere Analysis, with 58% of the TV shows currently being produced by Disney destined to be Originals on its streaming platform Disney+. 48% of the shows currently in production with WarnerMedia are destined for HBO Max.
Ampere Analysis closely tracks content output and trends across the TV sector and has counted up the new commissions during 2021, revealing that Discovery was the greatest global commissioner of TV shows, with a record-breaking 556 first-run TV titles commissioned in the year. ViacomCBS was second with 406 titles, with Netflix commissioning 403.
These figures exclude SVOD movies; if these are included, Netflix was the biggest commissioner (having green-lighted 203 movies in 2021). As Ampere Analysis points out, Discovery’s typical commissions (largely documentaries) have a shorter production timescale and are lower cost and less high-profile than titles on Netflix, whose slate is still predominantly Scripted shows.
The other top six 2021 first-run TV show commissioners were Disney on 387, the BBC with 373 and Comcast at 353. “This group of six pulled further ahead of their global rivals through 2021,” Ampere Analysis adds.
Netflix is set to release most of its 243 in-production TV titles in 2022 (with an additional 106 movies), which will push the streamer’s overall slate of Original releases to over 2,000 titles, the analyst firm reveals.
Richard Cooper, Research Director at Ampere Analysis, says: “2022 will see further additions to these content slates, as the studio-backed VoD services continue to expand both their original catalogues and subscriber bases, both domestically and, increasingly, internationally.”
