Content Licensing

It would be a wonderful thing if there was one streaming service you could subscribe to that allowed you to watch any show, from any network, from any time past or present, with no additional charge to watch.  That is the desire of many but it has never become a reality because of one hurdle in particular, content licensing.  The concept of licensing content is simple, those who create it, known as the production company give the right to distribute it to another company known as the distribution company.  Sometimes they are parts of the same company, sometimes they are a third party.  In any case, the right to distribute that content is known as a "license" and it determines rather pointedly, who can distribute that content.

Some production companies give licenses to more than one company, and that leads to their content being available on many different services.  However sometimes when a production company sets out to create content, they can't do it alone and need the backing of other companies.  In these cases it is often the distribution companies who partly finance the production in exchange for an exclusive license which means that content will only be available through their services.  When a production company and the distribution company are part of the same overall company, the license is almost always exclusive.

As a result, content becomes isolated and stranded on certain streaming services.  Things created by FOX often end up exclusive to Hulu, things created as Netflix Originals are only available on Netflix etc.  TV shows that belonged to certain TV networks end up only available on their streaming platforms, and the complexity grows until you reach a point where you have a myriad of streaming services and content that only appears on one or two of those services.

This whole post started when I saw a tweet of a "wishlist" of TV shows that someone wanted to appear on Netflix.  Not surprisingly almost all of the shows they listed are exclusive to rival platforms, most of them are exclusive to Hulu.  This made me realise that either general consumers are oblivious to everything I wrote above, or they know that fact and still want those services to find a way to show that content.

If the latter is the reality then this could be possible but would ultimately come down to one thing - money.  For Netflix to be able to show Hulu shows on their platform, Hulu and the production companies that back it would need to make as much money from that distribution route as they would using their own services, or even more.  The reality is that this would mean the Netflix subscription price would have to rise to the point where it essentially becomes their own plus Hulu's.  The problem with that is while some people would pay it for convenience, the option to have both services separately exists for consumers and if you don't pay for both separately at the moment, the likelihood is you can't afford to pay for both and wouldn't pay an inflated Netflix subscription price to do so - this ignores for the moment the technicality of region-locked content which is a debate unto itself.

The other option would be tiered subscriptions, where Netflix offers a "Netflix Only" level that stays the same as their current price, and a "Netflix Plus" level that includes Hulu content as well which costs the same as buying a subscription to both.

Consumers like simplicity however.  One reason Amazon Prime Instant Video is not as successful as its peers is that its cost is not transparent.  It offers a subscription but that does not cover all content and the Amazon site does not make it clear what is and is not included.  Beyond your base subscription there are lots of other Movies and TV shows you can watch, but to do so you have to buy episodes or seasons at a time and this costs an additional amount - consumers don't like this.

Netflix is simple.  You pay one flat rate each month and you consume all you can eat and your bill will never be any higher or lower that what you agreed to pay.  Introducing tiered membership would likely cause Netflix subscribers to react badly.  Indeed Netflix at present already has a form of tiered membership - something not many of its subscribers are aware of, as it isn't made clear that it exists.  Netflix Subscription tiers at present don't affect how much content you have access to, but rather the streaming quality and how many devices you can use the service on at once.  Most people are oblivious to this fact however and pay the first price that was presented to them when they signed up to Netflix blissfully unaware there are cheaper and more expensive plans available to them.

The point of this whole post is to underline the fact that while it would be nice to have everything in one place, it's unlikely to happen.  Both because the businesses that make those decisions are unwilling to open up their content to all platforms, and because you the consumer are unlikely to actually pay the subscription fee that would be necessary to gain access to all of that content in one place.