Netflix Dominates the Streamers: The Comparative Audience Makes a Big Statement

Netflix dominates its streaming competition.

Spell that D-O-M-I-N-A-T-E-S!

My survey of the audience for US streamers in 3Q’23 focused on the Top 2 Documentary and Reality programs for eight platforms.

The chart tells the story:

Legend

• The blue bar represents the US audience in thousands for the highest-rated unscripted program for each streamer in August and September 2023.
• And the orange bar: the audience for their 2nd highest rated program.

The Top Two’s

And here are the top 2 programs for each platform:

Top 2 Documentary / Reality Programs by Platform
(US P2+, ‘000, 3Q 2023)

Sources: Various

Scale

• Even the #1 programs for several streamers are small fraction of Netflix’s audience.
• Netflix’s top documentary is 10x Amazon’s #1, 5x Hulu’s, 6x Disney+, nearly 20x Apple TV’s, and so on.

Takeaways

• It is now clear that studios and legacy channel operators like WarnerBros/Discovery, Disney, Comcast/NBC/Universal and Paramount lack the reach to catch up with Netflix.
• They are incurring massive losses while enjoying incremental gains in streaming subscribers and revenues.
• Meanwhile their legacy networks are losing both subscribers and ad revenues to cord-cutting.
• A theoretical solution is to merge their content and and brands into a “Super non-Netflix” streamer. This is unlikely due to practical and “chief executive massive ego” factors that I may explore in a future post.
• Meanwhile, Sony is the major studio that decided to sit out Hollywood’s stampede into streaming. They are  sitting pretty selling programs to all comers.

True Crime

• Very interesting that six of the Top 16 shows are in the Crime genre.
• No other category comes close.
• Check out Camran Shealy’s The True Crime Boom: What’s Hot in 2023?

There’s More…

• There are many more opportunities for documentary filmmakers among the galaxy of streaming services.
• We recently covered Docsville in depth. Watch my Docsville webinar here!
• And don’t miss Wendy Bernfeld‘s upcoming webinar on licensing strategies for SVOD’s, AVOD/s and FAST channels, a reprise of Wendy’s standing room only MIPCOM presentation.

Ten U.S. Channels: What Are They Buying?

“Linear still matters!” is the theme of my Pact webinars with veteran programmer and analyst Dan Salerno on the U.S. channels’ programming strategies.

Watch here:

1. Discovery Channel and Animal Planet
2. National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo Wild
3. A&E and History Channel
4. TLC
5. HGTV & Food Network
6. Reelz
7. ID: Investigation Discovery

Other popular Pact / Documentary Business webinars

• Ed Hersh on the True Crime boom and what producers should pitch. (Meet Ed at Congress in Seattle.)
• Philip Shane shares his positive Takeaways on AI for Documentary Filmmakers.