How streaming has taken over Hollywo

Technology has reshaped the world, but few innovations have changed our daily lives more than streaming. Gone are the DVD player, movie rental shops and any sense of scarcity. Now our TVs are smart and platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ feed them an endless variety of video content, from classic sitcoms to arthouse movies and new series they produce themselves, mostly covered by flat monthly fees. More than a billion people subscribe to at least one such service. That’s 1 in 6 humans — plus family members or roommates. Streaming has altered our spending habits, our free time and even our sleep. Here’s the breakdown.
If a time traveler traversed the total number of hours Americans spent streaming in 2023, they would arrive in the Miocene Epoch, after the extinction of dinosaurs but during the period when saber-toothed cats roamed the Earth. It represents an increase of more than 20 percent over the year before. When Americans turn on their televisions today, they choose to stream rather than watch cable or broadcast programs about 40 percent of the time.
That’s how long the average American spends binge-watching each night — almost a fifth of their suggested waking hours. Bingeing refers to watching multiple episodes of a series in one sitting, made possible because platforms often drop entire seasons at once, unlike cable and broadcast channels, which typically release single episodes in weekly installments. Many bingers report losing sleep to the habit.
According to the United Talent Agency, stream-first movies started outpacing theatrical films in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and never looked back. Platforms launched more than 200 streaming-original films in 2022, almost double the 103 theatrical releases that same year. Mainstream movies can cost around $100 million to produce, including $35 million for distribution and marketing — costs streamers can largely avoid.
The percentage of Americans who go to the movies every month is 8 points lower now than it was five years ago, although another 42 percent do attend showings less frequently. A large part of that dwindle is due to the advent of streaming. Research by S&P Global shows that one-third of those who don’t go to theaters prefer to watch new releases at home.
That’s how many subscribe to at least one streaming service, led by Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+. They spend an average of $46 per person. More broadly, Americans spent $41 billion on digital home entertainment in 2023, up $6.5 billion from 2022, enough to buy 96,881 homes at the national median sale price.
Women and people of color viewed the most streamed films of 2023, according to a UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report. Women constituted a majority of viewers for 9 of the top 10; households of color were overrepresented for 18 of the top 20. A 2020 Nielsen report found that streamed programming was more diverse than broadcast or cable.
Nielsen, a global market research company, surveyed how 10 demographic groups are portrayed across broadcast, cable and streaming platforms. Streaming proved the most diverse, with more representation in 6 of the 10 categories. The report also found Black and Hispanic households ditched subscriptions to cable — the least diverse of the three — more than other demographics, suggesting viewers have a growing desire to see themselves portrayed on TV.
The Blockbuster video rental shop in Bend, Oregon, is the last of its kind, 10 years after the once-prominent chain shut down its corporate-owned locations globally. Redbox has shuttered thousands of its signature automated DVD rental kiosks, even before its parent company filed for bankruptcy. This sector still employs 4,355 people nationwide, but that number has dropped more than 12 percent in five years, with fewer than 600 brick-and-mortar rental businesses remaining in the U.S.
The streaming economy fueled last year’s Hollywood labor dispute as the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement with studios. Half of all TV writing jobs are now for streaming shows, which have shorter seasons — 10 episodes on average, compared to at least 22 on cable — offering less work, lower residuals and worrisome gaps in insurance coverage.
This story appears in the September 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.