Buyers' New Good-for-Sellers Vibe Shift (& What 'The Pitt' Has to Do With It)
A certain kind of series that can have longevity is hot again as streaming strategy shifts (for once) in writers' favor
Lesley Goldberg reports from L.A. She interviewed Bruce Miller of The Handmaid’s Tale, and wrote about the mess at Amazon TV after exec Jen Salke’s exit. Reach her at lesley.goldberg@theankler.com
Earlier this month, Gunsmoke — the Western that started as a radio show before running for 20 seasons on CBS — cracked Nielsen’s streaming top 10 for the first time since the series wrapped its 635-episode run. In . . . 1975. Gunsmoke, which streams on both Paramount+ and Peacock, joined staples NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy and The Big Bang Theory on the same Nielsen chart of the best-performing acquired titles.
The common denominator? All four shows have massive libraries featuring hundreds of episodes — and they reflect what’s become a new priority as streamers continue their evolution (or devolution, some would say) into the broadcast networks that made each of those shows massive hits.
“The ultimate goal of a studio is to create an annuity for a lifetime of massive libraries and sell them over and over again for decades,” one studio insider tells me of the wave of broadcast-like series that have become streaming hits, including medical dramas (Max’s The Pitt, Netflix’s Pulse) and Amazon’s guy-with-a-gun shows like Reacher — not to mention the whole suite of Taylor Sheridan shows on Paramount+, Mayor of Kingstown to Landman to the myriad Yellowstone offshoots.
To be sure, broadcast hits with huge libraries, which are huge weapon in battling churn, as Entertainment Strategy Guy has written, have been the backbone of streaming platforms since Day 1. Before Netflix started streaming broadcast favorites in 2007 — later entering the scripted originals space in 2013 with House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black — the streamer was best known for delivering DVDs by mail of those shows including Friends, The Office and Battlestar Galactica. (Sorry, Netflix, I still have a red envelope of BSG somewhere in my garage.)
When Warners, Paramount and Comcast entered the streaming fray, one of their first orders of business was to reclaim hits produced by their studio arms from Netflix’s queue, which is how The Office came home to Peacock and Friends became a centerpiece of Max.
But now, as licensing fees for proven commodities like Family Guy continue to soar and those same shows continue to chart, many streamers have re-prioritized buying and developing ongoing dramas over the flashy limited series that historically cost more to make and market but don’t always cut through. Popular shows with expansive libraries tend to see high demand on streaming platforms because they repeat well and offer thousands of hours of viewing for subscribers to leave on in the background as comfort food. That tends to raise the fees the studios charge streamers to carry them. WarnerMedia paid $85 million per year for five years ($425 million total) to reclaim Friends for Max in mid-2019.
A decade ago, limited series were booming creatively and with audiences. A-listers flocked to shorter time commitments and awards recognition — along with huge paydays — as the Peak TV phenomenon exploded. “The volume of limited series increased dramatically as streamers came online, and they wanted stars because there was a theory that stars drive viewership,” says one veteran lit agent. That brought limited/anthology hits ranging from True Detective and Fargo to Ripley, Beef and Dopesick, as well as multiple Ryan Murphy entries (American Horror Story, Feud, American Crime Story).
Even broadcast networks attempted to recruit viewers with such projects as NBC’s 2022 Renee Zellweger vehicle The Thing About Pam. But limited series cost as much if not more than ongoing series, and as the veteran lit agent tells me, “you get no second-season pop and you build no library value — and the executives have to work five times harder to develop the next one, and the next one, and the next one vs. just renewing it.”
Now that Netflix has pivoted its priority from subscriber acquisition (growth at all costs) to profits, other streamers have followed suit and are looking for more of a return on their investment in scripted originals, which means a shift from pricey limited series to renewable assets. In today’s newsletter, I’ll break down:
How Max’s The Pitt epitomizes the new strategy for streaming
The built-in cost savings with ongoing series
Which limited series have pivoted to ongoing shows and why
How A-listers’ seven-figure limited series paydays made the format so risky
What the streamers’ new push for advertising has to do with it
How one studio has told sellers not to bring it any limited projects
The good news for writers from this priority shift
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