Speaking at the Berlinale Series Market, Ampere Analysis’ Guy Bisson shared insights on the current state and future of television in a post-peak-TV world, one he’s calling 75% Peak TV.
His analysis provided a comprehensive overview of the industry’s trajectory, highlighting key trends and challenges. Below, we revisit some of Bisson’s key thoughts on the evolving landscape of TV.
Peak TV is Dead, Long Live 75% Peak TV
“Peak TV is over,” Bisson told Variety unequivocally in a preview of his talk. “2023 set the agenda, and it’s really interesting if you look at the last 10 bars on that chart [below]. If you were to put a trendline through those last 10 bars, you’d have a flat line. But what it represents is 25% down on peak. And that means that we are in a market which I’m defining as 75% Peak TV, and we have reached a steady state at 75% peak TV.”
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Bisson’s observation underscores a significant shift in the television industry. The era of Peak TV, characterized by an abundance of high-end fiction content, has reached its zenith. The market has now stabilized at 75% of that pandemic-era peak, indicating a new normal for the industry.
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Broadcastification of Streaming
“We’ve also got a situation particularly relevant to drama and higher-end scripted TV of what I’m calling broadcastification of streaming. And that is, of course, creating more pressure on some of those traditional players who are being massively impacted by the audience migration to global streaming.”
Bisson introduced the concept of “broadcastification,” where streaming services are increasingly adopting strategies traditionally associated with broadcast television. This shift is driven by various factors, including market saturation, investor demands for profitability and the need to retain customers. One of the most clear indications of this shift, aside from the introduction of ads to nearly every streaming platform, is an increased emphasis on live sports among streamers. Over the past five years, streamers have doubled their spend on sports offerings, and a recent Ampere study claimed that streamers will spend $12.5 billion on sports rights in 2025. Imagine, Bisson suggested, if they go full broadcaster and start spending 30% of their budgets on sports. What will be left for traditional players?
Unscripted
“Streaming content strategies were increasingly overlapping with broadcast players. So they also have a lot more unscripted,” Bisson explained. “Five years ago, one in three of their original commissions was unscripted. It’s half now, one in two.”
This trend reflects a strategic pivot as streaming services seek to diversify their offerings and attract a broader audience. According to Bisson, only one category of scripted television is on the rise at the moment, and its popularity with streamers could spell trouble for broadcasters. “Crime is the only genre of TV that is showing an upward trajectory, and of course, long-running crime procedurals are the bread and butter of national broadcast TV. But we’re seeing a big upswing in activity for the streamers,” we warned.
The Impact of Market Saturation
“We had market saturation where growth was very hard to come by,” Bisson explained of streaming platforms reaching their upper limits of subscribers. He explained that although markets were running out of new customers, “We had investors calling for profit, reductions in spending and a need to retain customers becoming more important than the need to acquire, because, especially in wealthier markets, the streaming business was saturating.”
Market saturation has significantly influenced the strategies of streaming services, he argued. As growth becomes increasingly challenging, the focus has shifted and will continue to shift towards profitability and customer retention. This is seen most clearly in a rise of renewals of existing shows while original, first-run commissions are dropping. Distributors are sticking with what they know will work and taking fewer chances.
The Future of High-End Drama
As a result, “High-end drama has become less important to streamers,” said Bisson. He argued that commissioners will continue to cut back on new series orders and that when they do try something new, they’re likely to favor more ambitious, higher-quality programming. Quality over quantity.
Bisson’s analysis suggests that high-end drama is losing its centrality in the content strategies of streaming services, a major shift from the Peak TV era. Bisson didn’t suggest that the end is near for high-end TV, but it will mean that far fewer first-run series will show up on streaming and broadcast TV.
Collaboration Across Ecosystems
“Collaboration across ecosystems is the only way to think about the market,” Bisson insisted of the way forward in a world where streamers, channels, and video platforms must fight for the same viewers. According to Bisson, the relationships in this setting need not be confrontational, and traditional broadcasters can learn plenty from global players.
“Say I’m a commercial broadcaster. I am not going to become YouTube. I’m regionally limited my distribution, even my broadcast licence is likely regional. But, I can both learn from and collaborate with organizations that are global distributors with expertise in streamlining ad sales to a global audience. And so maybe I should think about collaboration.”
Survival of the Fittest: The Importance of Adaptability
According to Bisson, it’s easy to take a negative approach and predict a dark future for broadcasters. Given the overwhelming popularity of video hosting platforms, seen in the graph below, even some of the biggest streamers could face irrelevancy in the shadow of behemoths like YouTube and TikTok.
However, “I’m arguing that thinking is slightly flawed,” he explained. “We need to rethink how we define ecosystems within media and entertainment. Darwinian theory tells us, ‘survival of the fittest.’ So you might, therefore, think that big, powerful and rich companies are the fittest and will dominate. But actually, Darwin’s theory is based on fitness to survive, which does not always mean big and strong. It can, but it doesn’t necessarily. What it means is an ability to thrive in the unique set of pressures in which you live and exist.”
Bisson’s perspective on adaptability underscores the need for media companies to thrive within their unique and, most importantly, local ecosystems. Success is not solely determined by capital but by the ability to navigate and adapt to the specific pressures of a given market. In this case, traditional distributors may hold a distinct advantage over the global superpowers.
Wrapping Up
A panel conversation titled “Breaking The Wheel (Again) – Broadcaster and Streamers Navigating Changes” followed Bisson’s presentation and invited industry heads to reflect on the showings brought up by Ampere. Nicole Morganti, Head of Originals for Southern Europe at Amazon MGM Studios mentioned that, amongst streamers, Amazon swam against the tide in starting their content strategy with a focus on unscripted — including sports — and general audiences. “Our original target was broad and we are now focusing on women and young audience as our audience is very male.”
Hauke Bartel, EVP of Fiction at RTL Germany observed that broadcasters have tried emulating streamers’s strategies but it “made it harder and harder to reach their original audience.” Streamers trying to become more generalized has put broadcasters in “a very good position,” added Bartel, because “they know general audiences very well.”
A major point of discussion was the issue of exhibition windows. José Pastor, Fiction Director at Spain’s RTVE called the difference between broadcasters and streamers “a matter of windowing.” “All our series are sold to streamers but we want the first window. We are the best promotion campaign a series can get — if we go first, it’s perfect marketing for when the series goes to a streamer but the opposite wouldn’t work. There is no buzz around the series anymore.”
When co-producing with another European broadcaster, for example, Pastor doesn’t have as many issues with negotiating first and second windows as each country gets first exhibition rights on their territory, whereas majors like Netflix — until recently, at least — would buy rights for multiple territories. All panelists agreed, however, that while issues such as licensing, exhibition windows, and data sharing still present challenges, linear TV and traditional broadcast is “very much alive,” as put by Morganti.
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