Netflix, HBO, and Disney income present the streaming growth is over

Right here’s a typical streaming TV joke/grievance: There are such a lot of completely different providers that somebody ought to simply put all of them collectively, and then you definately’d simply pay one month-to-month charge for all the things. You recognize, identical to cable TV!

Ho ho ho.

The factor is, not one of the folks working streaming TV providers suppose there are going to be a ton of TV providers sooner or later. They suppose they’ll ultimately consolidate into a couple of huge gamers.

We’re already seeing a few of that, which is why Warner Brothers Discovery is on the point of launch a yet-to-be-named service that may mash up HBO Max and Discovery Plus, which implies you’ll have the ability to pay for White Lotus and Dr. Pimple Popper with one month-to-month invoice. Cautious what you want for!

Within the meantime, in case you try Wall Road earnings studies, you may see fairly clearly why typical trade knowledge is that the trade goes to get smaller, a minimum of by way of suppliers: It’s actually, actually costly to run a streamer, particularly at first.

And in case you don’t need to dig by way of public filings, don’t fear, we’ve accomplished it for you. Right here’s a fast snapshot of the cash Netflix made within the first 9 months of 2022, and the cash most of the would-be Netflixes misplaced:

There are some caveats right here, together with the truth that we’re utilizing barely completely different definitions of income and losses for every streamer as a result of they every use completely different ones of their filings. Add to that the truth that Warner Bros. Discovery’s whole is decrease than it needs to be as a result of we solely had two quarters of knowledge accessible for this chart.

However the huge image is that there’s a ton of crimson ink, and there could be a lot, far more if we 1) went again additional as a result of a few of these providers have been bleeding cash for a number of years and a couple of) might see the P&Ls of Apple and Amazon, that are burning huge piles of cash on streaming however are so huge that it doesn’t matter to them or their traders (for now).

This chart additionally explains why exhibits you like (however different folks don’t) are more likely to disappear now than they have in the past: A few years in the past, Wall Road was telling media firms that they need to emulate Netflix and fear about progress, not losses. That modified final yr, for Netflix and for everyone else. Now, Netflix founder Reed Hastings preaches the deserves of working revenue, and his rivals are speaking about rationalizing prices.

Streaming isn’t going away. Knowledge agency Ampere Evaluation predicts world content material spending will hit $243 billion this yr. That’s a 2 % enhance, and it’s down fairly a bit from the 6 % progress we noticed in 2022. Nevertheless it’s approach, approach up from the $128 billion we noticed a decade in the past. You’re nonetheless going to have lots of alternative for a very long time.