When we signed up for Netflix about 15 years ago, it was unbelievable. Their DVD selection seemed to offer everything. I could get movies from almost any year, including silent movies, obscure movies from the 30s and 40s and of course, the classics. This was after Blockbuster was feeling a lot of pain and was beginning to feel burdened by high costs and lower turnover of its movie titles. Netflix and other competitors were chipping away and applying the heat as the days of members renting physical DVDs was coming to an end.

Netflix was the bomb; you could rent anything and it would arrive by mail in a few days. No more. I don’t know what happened to that incredibly deep library of DVDs they once had. Netflix sold off inventory, reducing costs, but now, I have trouble finding anything from the Golden Era beyond the classics. Yes, Netflix has reduced its dependence on old DVDs and increased its dependence on streaming. Mostly, they have reoriented their mission to become one of the largest studios, producing original content (including both movies and TV series) that would make Samuel Goldwyn’s or Sam Warner’s or Louis B. Mayer’s head spin.

The problem isn’t Netflix. The problem is Netflix, Disney +, Hulu, Amazon Prime and many other services. These are our choices now and there never been so many. If you want to view a new show, sign up here. Oh, you also want to watch that hot new show? No problem, just sign up for this competing service. And on and on. It’s not feasible to sign up for every streaming service. I want my DVD back.

I guess it all started with the DVD. The damned industry just couldn’t be happy with DVD players that were VHS. Sony had to introduce Betamax, so viewers had to decide between the two. Well we know how that played out – sorry Sony. VHS dominated but the market was now fractured. And now the market has multiple fractures. I don’t want to sign up for a bunch of streaming services, I don’t want to pick and choose. I want my MTV back.

Boomers like me know how easy it was to decide on a movie or TV show back in the 60s or 70s. There were the three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. So all original programming was confined to those three. Want to watch an old gem like Casablanca? You’d check out the movie listing for the coming week in TV Guide. Yes, you had to wait for it but you didn’t have to sign up for multiple “plans” or “packages.” Perhaps Casablanca wasn’t being aired that week but you saw to your surprise that A Night at the Opera starring the Marx Brothers was being shown on Tuesday.

Those older movies and reruns were a godsend to the local TV stations in the 1950s. In the New York metro area, we had Channels 5, 9 and 11; all of these did not produce much original programming back then and instead found their success by airing the older movies and TV shows as America discovered it loved nostalgia and almost anything on TV. And there was Channel 13, our PBS. That was great not only because it showed a lot of educational shows, it also showed a lot of BBC programming. Benny Hill, anyone? And later, Fawlty Towers and many other shows that introduced Americans to great programming from overseas.

Yes it wasn’t ideal, you had to wait to see your movies and often, it might have been scheduled to air at 1:00 am (with commercials, of course). There were no VCRs yet so you stayed up or waited until another station would show it at a more reasonable hour.

Now, I can watch shows and movies on demand. That’s fantastic! But not all movies are available to stream. Sigh. And not all movies, series or shows are available on my package. Now what?

The market has become too fragmented and we all know what happens. It’s always a ticking time bomb. As I mentioned earlier, Betamax went away, stranding all those customers who had invested in their players and Beta format movies. Who’s next? All these streaming services will not survive. We know that. One will be bought out by the other. Startups will keep on starting up.

Someone (with very deep pockets) will provide a new package where we all will be able to pick and choose the shows we want to see. Sort of an a la carte approach. It won’t be free, that’s okay. But just set one fair price structure based on tiers where everyone pays the same, but adjusted for the size of the package you customize. Just provide access to everybody. I understand why it is so proprietary. After all, Disney programming and its library is unique as is the Netflix basket as is the Amazon basket. In a tiered program all the studios still get paid, they just have to share.

And that’s something they just can’t wrap their heads around. “Share? Our company paid millions to produce or procure all this content!” But your customer base is only a fraction of the U.S. audience since the other streaming companies have signed up their own slice of the market. Together, they can all reach everyone. Again, like in the old days.

Look what happened to the music industry. Artists always had contracts to recording labels. Album prices were rising while many fans were less than satisfied when albums (and later CDs) had more filler than hits. One thing led to another and then Steve Jobs announced iTunes and everything went to streaming. The record labels and many artists never recovered. Now many people get their music from Spotify and other services and either pay a subscription or get their music free but are forced to listen to a few ads.

We know what Jeff Bezos did to the book publishing industry. How’s that independent book store doing in your town? It’s great that book prices plummeted but try shopping for a book without going on-line.

Content. It always gets squeezed, it gets commoditized. Which is insane since it is the origin, the source of new art, music, ideas, stories. One of our country’s greatest exports is our content. Our movies are anticipated all over the world, not just by American audiences. Our reach is truly global.

I wonder how the continued packaging and platforming of our great content will play our overseas. Many won’t pay the ridiculous monthly bills we pay for multiple streaming services. Something’s gotta give.

Oh wait, that movie with Jack Nicholson was great! Quick! Let me see if it’s in my streaming package – or do I have to go the library and hope they have the DVD, or check Video on Demand – or maybe I should just buy the damned DVD at the Thrift Store down the road for a buck. That’s what I call a fractured market. Someone’s got to come along with a better system. Sigh, I want my MTV back.

Chris Ebel
11/4/21

Photo credit: @hortongroup