As unprecedented peak TV output finally winds down, the contours of a new TV landscape are beginning to emerge. One of the big features of this situation is that there is more international television.
A new forecast from Ampere Analysis predicts that more than half of Netflix’s content spending this year – $7.9 billion out of a total of about $15.4 billion – will be spent on titles produced outside of North America. This means that for the first time, a large portion of a streamer’s budget will be spent on localized original content for international markets, or licensing internationally produced titles.
This is consistent with a broader trend in the television industry as media companies rethink their content strategies for the post-peak TV era, as explored in the VIP+ special report, “The Death of Peak TV.” According to another forecast from Ampere, content spending in North America is expected to decline by more than 20% over the next five years from 2022 levels.
There are two reasons for this change. For one thing, international content is often much cheaper to produce or acquire than domestic productions (partly because other countries have lax labor laws), whereas in recent years the U.S. Viewers of non-English content.
The Korean series “Squid Game” remains the gold standard in this regard, making it one of the most-watched titles in Netflix history with a budget of about $21 million, but this is more than a reported “Stranger Things” That’s less than one-tenth of the production cost for Season 4.
Second, the maturation of the U.S. streaming market has led streamers to invest more in local content in less saturated regions. As it becomes increasingly difficult to add domestic SVOD subscribers, companies are realizing that they need to drive future growth in the emerging streaming market, where existing US-based players Control is decreasing.
One such region is sub-Saharan Africa, one of the few regions on Earth where the Big Red N faces strong competition. The other is India, a rapidly growing economic and cultural powerhouse where Netflix is spending aggressively to grow its subscriber base. Don’t be surprised if the next “squid game” comes out of India in the next few years.
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