The streaming model is cratering — here's how that's hurting actors, writers and fans
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When studios first started streaming content online, it felt too good to be true. All of a sudden, there was something for everyone at every minute of every day. Now, with writers and actors on strike, that age of plenty has turned into a race for survival. Streamers like Netflix and HBO's Max are canceling seasons, taking movies and shows off their platforms, angering not only creators but also fans. NPR's Elizabeth Blair dug into what it means.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Here's some sound from a movie you cannot watch.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRATER")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) The lockdown will commence...
BILLY BARRATT: (As Dylan) C'mon.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) ...In five, four, three...
BLAIR: The movie is called "Crater." It cost a reported $53 million to make. It's a sci-fi adventure about teens who live on the moon some 200 years in the future. This is from the trailer.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRATER")
ISAIAH RUSSELL-BAILEY: (As Caleb Channing) The sky on Earth - is it really blue?
MCKENNA GRACE: (As Addison Weaver) Yeah.
RUSSELL-BAILEY: (As Caleb Channing) Wow.
BLAIR: "Crater" debuted on Disney+ in May and then disappeared two months later.
BETSY BOZDECH: It seems very abrupt.
BLAIR: Now, some people, like Betsy Bozdech and her two kids, did get to see "Crater" before it got yanked.
BOZDECH: It's pretty emotionally intense, about friendship and separation. And it was a great family movie night for us.
BLAIR: Bozdech is the editorial director at Common Sense Media, which reviews content for kids. She was disappointed.
BOZDECH: Sort of the promise when a lot of these streamers launched was that you got access to the whole catalog forever. So I think it's a little bit of a feeling of a rug being pulled out from under you.
BLAIR: And for creators of content that gets removed...
ZOE MARSHALL: It's soul-crushing. There is nothing we can do.
BLAIR: Zoe Marshall is the screenwriter of another movie that was removed, this time by Paramount+.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FANTASY FOOTBALL")
KELLY ROWLAND: (As Keisha Coleman) Maybe start thinking about what life might look like after football.
OMARI HARDWICK: (As Bobby Coleman) Whoa, whoa.
BLAIR: "Fantasy Football" is a comedy about a teen girl whose father is an older professional football player.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FANTASY FOOTBALL")
MARSAI MARTIN: (As Callie Coleman) I've lived in seven cities before my 16th birthday all because my football star dad is fumbling away his career.
MARSHALL: I wanted it to be a smart picture of what it's like to be a smart, young, Black girl who has a positive relationship with her Black father.
BLAIR: And make money. Historically, writers, actors and others made money for the content they created, and then when their shows were rerun or sold to another network, they got more money, residuals. But with streamers, it's more typical to get a flat fee. And if your show gets taken down, it's kind of like taking it off the market.
MARSHALL: As far as "Fantasy Football" being removed, they may never do anything with it again. So I may not see any additional residuals for something that made them an untold amount of money.
BLAIR: Untold is the key word there. It infuriates content creators that streamers don't share ratings, which makes it hard for them to negotiate future projects. A show can even become a hit, and yet the actors and writers still don't make any extra money. But corporations do share information with investors. On Disney's last earnings call, executives said that removing content would give them a tax write-off. CEO Bob Iger explained another reason for removing content. There's too much of it. When they first launched Disney+...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOB IGER: We wanted to flood the so-called digital shelves with as much content as possible.
BLAIR: Thinking that would attract subscribers or sub growth - didn't happen, he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IGER: We realized that we made a lot of content that is not necessarily driving sub growth. And we're getting much more surgical about what it is we make.
BLAIR: He also pointed out that a streamer can't just put shows out there and hope people find them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IGER: You're spending a lot of money marketing things that are not going to have an impact on the bottom line except negatively. One thing we also know is that our films, those that are released theatrically, big tentpole movies in particular, are great sub drivers. But we were spreading our marketing costs so thin that we were not allocating enough money to even market them when they came on the service.
BLAIR: But the beauty of streaming was supposed to be options, something for everyone.
CARA HORTON: I'm getting really sick of my favorite shows being canceled after one season when they're left on massive cliffhangers.
BLAIR: Fifteen-year-old Cara Horton was a huge fan of the series "Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies," which was just nominated for two Emmys.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CRUSHING ME")
TRICIA FUKUHARA: (As Nancy Nakagawa, singing) My brilliance turned to dust - fever chills each time we touch. The big C - oh, here it comes - a crush.
BLAIR: Paramount+ canceled "The Pink Ladies" after one season. They do say they're shopping it around. Still, Horton was furious.
CARA: Immediately, my first thought was, what can we do to save it?
BLAIR: She started a petition that now has more than 42,000 signatures.
CARA: I think streaming services have really forgotten that it takes a couple seasons before a show, like, gets big and picks up.
MAUREEN RYAN: She's absolutely correct.
BLAIR: Maureen Ryan is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. She's been covering the entertainment industry for 30 years. Her new book is called "Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, And A Call For Change In Hollywood." She says the promise of streaming has been broken.
RYAN: What is the point of this golden streaming age if the creative people, the consumers - if they're all kind of agitated about things - you know, them not getting what they thought they were going to get, you know? It's just - it's a really rough moment. And I think it's basically streamageddon's (ph) reckoning. That would be, like, the bad action movie I would make out of all this.
BLAIR: Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF LADY WRAY SONG, "HOLD ON")
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