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Max's Black Friday Deal

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Max has announced an early Black Friday deal for new and returning subscribers, offering the Max With Ads plan at $2.99 per month for the first six months, down from $9.99. This represents a 70% discount and is available from today until Monday, November 27. Subscribers gain access to a variety of premium content, including HBO, TLC, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, OWN, Warner Bros. Pictures' films like "Blue Beetle" and "Barbie." Max also highlights upcoming releases in 2024, such as HBO Originals like "True Detective: Night Country" and Max Originals like "The Penguin." The deal includes access to the Bleacher Report Sports Add-On and CNN Max for a limited time. The offer is accessible on various platforms, including Max.com, Apple TV, Google Play, Roku, and Amazon Fire for new customers only. The press release provides details on the deal and mentions returning favorites for 2024.

This Black Friday deal is one of many that streaming services such as Max engage in. It is easy to question how streaming services benefit from these deals. At first glance, it can be assumed that these services lose money with these deals because of their discounted price. However, this is far from the truth. As one of our class guest speakers, Jackie Lem mentioned, these customer deals are actually beneficial for streaming platforms. Jackie mentioned Amazon Prime Day where new users could get Max for 50% off for two months. In these partnerships, it is important to think about retention strategies, and how to keep people subscribing when the two months are over. 

In the case of Max’s Black Friday deal, the company may be losing money on the subscription price, but they benefit from an increased number of new subscribers for the duration of the six months that they have a discounted price. This increase of new subscribers also brings in ad revenue due to the fact the Black Friday deal is only available for their ad supported viewing option. Additionally, Max is relying on the possibility that these new customers from the Black Friday deal may continue their subscription after the 6 month period and pay the standard pricing, or that subscribers may even forget to cancel their subscription after the six month period. 

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Roku's New Update Allows For More Personalized Content

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A new development of Roku streaming is they are working to enhance the streaming experience with a series of new features through automatic software updates. Their goal with the new update is to create a more personalized viewing experience for their users. They are developing their sports section and are adding a “Sports Team Favorites” section where users can  "favorite" their preferred sports teams, which will help them track upcoming games across popular leagues like NFL, NHL, WNBA, and more. This feature allows convenient browsing of live sporting events and information on where to stream them. Users will also be able to watch post-game content, such as essential clips and expert analysis directly within the Roku Sports. 

This new update will also expand by incorporating motorsports in early 2024. There are more features such as Google Photos which is compatible with Roku Photo Streams, allowing users to connect their Google Photos account and share special moments on their TV. Roku is also introducing over 150 new Music Video Playlists, allowing users to choose from genres like Relaxing Jazz, Classic Rock, and Boy Bands for on-demand streaming.

This new update allows users to incorporate their life into streaming, bridging a divide between streaming and entertainment as a whole. Streaming continues to gain popularity and dependency in society. Increasing personalized features minimizes the amount of devices and platforms users rely on.

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The Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown Is Working

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On July 20, 2023, Netflix began working to correct loss revenue due to password sharing of their subscribers. Following this ban on sharing passwords, Netflix reported revenue of $8.5 billion for the third quarter of 2023—up 8% compared with 2022. 

The issue that was arising previous to the ban was that many users would share their password with friends who didn’t want to pay for the service and this led to a loss of revenue from subscriber subscriptions that could be paying for the service. To tackle the problem, Netflix will kick any devices out that don’t connect to the same wifi source. This created a lot of outrage with audience members. Many people brought up the fact that families don’t all live under the same roof or that subscribers who pay for the service should be able to do whatever they want with their account. Netflix created solutions for these unhappy customers. Netflix introduced “paid sharing”—which allows users to share accounts for an additional fee. This still was disheartening for many customers and there was a fear that subscriber counts may drop. 

Luckily, the ban was successful in their efforts to increase revenue. Not only was there an 8% increase in revenue compared to 2022, but Netflix was successful in increasing the number of subscribers to their ad supported tier- something they were struggling to accomplish. 

The biggest reason Nextflix decided to crack down on password sharing is due to the increased competition from new streamers like Disney+ and HBO Max. Netflix hasn’t faced competition like this in a decade. With the rising success of other streaming services that offer equal quality content for a lower price, Netflix was looking to continue securing their number one spot at the top. This creates a question of: Will the other streaming services follow in Netflix’s footsteps and ban password sharing?

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Is TikTok the future of television?

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While the app Tiktok started out as a dancing app with creators showing off their dance moves, it has recently shifted to one where viewers can watch three minute clips of pirated content. Users are able to search up “full movies on tiktok,” it brings up content with more than 100 million total views, while “full episode” also brings up videos with millions of views. Sometimes, these viewers even have access to watching the actual show on a streaming service they subscribe to but watching content in multiple parts somehow gives viewers fulfillment. Perhaps it is the cliffhangers of each part that makes Tiktok users hunt for the next part. 

Most streaming services see this piracy of content as a loss for their company since users may not feel a need to subscribe to their content if Tiktok has the content there. However, streaming services such as Peacock have used this new development of Tiktok to their advantage. On October 3rd, Peacock released the 107 minute ‘Mean Girls’ film to their Tik Tok account in 23 parts. Furthermore, in August, Peacock made the full pilot episode of its half-hour comedy series, Killing It, available on TikTok ahead of the second season premiere, uploading it in five parts. This resulted in 7 million users viewing the videos which opened up a whole new audience for the streaming service. This also helped the efforts of Peacock hoping to draw in more subscribers. In Peacock's latest quarterly earnings, they added 2 million subscribers, bringing its total number of U.S. subscribers to 24 million. 

Gen Z is a generation who turn more towards online entertainment such as streaming or social media content. Gen Z is the biggest generation of “cord-nevers” which are people who have never lived with or used cable television. Streaming services are fighting to keep Gen Z engaged by relying on social media to entice Gen Z viewers. With pirated streaming on TikTok, we may be looking at a future where entertainment is faster paced, adhering to the younger generations that may have shorter attention spans.

 So although, piracy can potentially harm streaming services who are losing money on subscription and streaming revenue, Tiktok can potentially be used to entice more subscribers to a streaming service if they see content on TikTok that intrigues them.

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Prime Video's New Ad Subscription

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Amazon Prime memberships automatically include an Amazon Prime Video subscription where users are able to access hundreds of movies and TV shows for free and have access to Freevee which users have access to additional content with ads, until now. Starting early 2024, Prime Video will begin incorporating ads into series and movies. Just like many other streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, and Max which services used to be ad free with a subscription, Prime Video is following in their footsteps. 

This is a big change in streaming services. Ad supported services give more revenue paths to streaming companies that are searching for growth opportunities and business improvement. Businesses are now also able to advertise their products through streaming services which provides opportunities for them as well. By providing tailored advertising choices, these streaming platforms enable brands to target distinct demographic groups. Companies can utilize data and observations obtained from streaming platforms to decipher user preferences, interests, and viewing patterns. By using this data, they can create customized and precise advertisements, thereby enhancing the likelihood of these ads being seen, interacted with, or shared.

Something that Amazon Video is doing differently than other streaming platforms that have added ad supported streaming is pricing differences. Instead of creating two pay options, one that costs less but has ads and another that costs more but is ad free, Amazon Prime members don’t need to pay anything extra but their Amazon Video will become ad supported. If these Amazon Prime users don’t want ads, they will have to pay an additional $2.99 a month for no ad streaming. 

Amazon Video, like most streaming services with ad pricing tiers, claims that they will be using the revenue from their ads to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” This ad change will most likely not affect the user's subscription cancellation for Amazon. First off, an Amazon subscription is bundled with shipping and consumer perks of Prime shipping so the odds of users canceling their entire Prime membership over ad viewing is unlikely. Furthermore, the content of streaming services is the main drawing factor of subscribers. According to a study conducted by PWC, “65% of respondents said content was the most crucial factor when considering a subscription.” The freedom to choose what show or movie you watch is very important to users and is the biggest difference between cable TV.

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Netflix's Expanding Presence in Gaming

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In late 2021, Netflix began their integration of gaming into their streaming service. Other than streaming, the company says they love “entertaining [their] members”. They began their launch with five mobile games. Some of these games include Stranger Things: 1984 (BonusXP) and Teeter Up (Frosty Pop). Now In 2023, Netflix is looking to "expand its presence in the gaming space". These games were directly in the Netflix mobile app and closely resembles IOS mobile games with no controller.

Netflix is always looking to expand their content as well as reach their content to different countries and cultures. The mobile games are available in a variety languages and will automatically adjust to the language setting on your account. This is a smart tactic for Netflix. By creating accessibility to a wide range of languages allows for a greater audience market to ensure success for the Netflix gaming world. Some may argue however, the main audience for these games are people who already have a subscription and have kids who love those types of games. I would like to see Netflix add games that are more targeted to an older audience. Perhaps a thriller game or action game.

A speculation to why Netflix is choosing to expand their gaming content is the Hollywood writers strike which has resulted in lower cash content spend for the streaming service.

This decision to move more towards gaming is a huge step forward for Netflix. In the past month, Netflix released a phone-based TV game controller for iOS devices and they are also looking to expand to PCs and Macs through the web. The past games released on Netflix such as the Stranger Things game or Teeter Up, proved much success. Without "offering its wide user base something new without requiring a secondary subscription, using a separate app store, or forcing developers to adapt to an unfamiliar platform," Netflix made the accessibility of their games very simple for their users and they were willing to use and play the games.

For the streaming world, Netflix has greatly changed the game. Netflix has moved from simply a streaming service to an entertainment service. Before their gaming services, Netflix was also the first streaming service to add "Choose Your Own Adventure" content. Netflix's show Black Mirror featured an episode called "Bandersnatch" where the watchers were able to choose characters choices throughout the episode. There were four different endings to this episode depending on which choices were chosen. This created a lot of buzz on social media and it became a whole discussion on each ending. Users were also inclined to rewatch the episode and change their decision to create a different ending. Netflix seems very far ahead of their competitors and are looking to cross media sectors, combining streaming and gaming into one subscription, which could change the way we experience and subscribe to media forever.

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My sector is video streaming

My sector is Video Streaming and I will be following the Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Screen Rant