Cord cutters’ choice: Streaming TV alternatives spring up in Netflix’s shadow
Cord cutters’ choice: Streaming TV alternatives spring up
in Netflix’s shadow
By REX CRUM | rcrum@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News
Group
PUBLISHED: March 15, 2018 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: March 15,
2018 at 3:21 pm
The popularity of cutting the cord to traditional cable
TV bundles isn’t just evident in the number who have done it —13.5 million
people by 2017, according to MoffettNathenson Research. It’s also obvious in
the individual streaming subscriptions now being offered, with more options for
viewing different genres of films and TV shows.
Most streaming subscribers have turned to one of the
Major Leaguers: Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu. Los Gatos-based Netflix, alone, has
117.6 million subscribers worldwide, with almost 55 million of those in the
United States.
But the biggest streaming services still don’t offer all
things to all viewers, and that’s created an opening for a growing menu of
streamers providing specialty alternatives — everything from Sundance Now’s
independent films to Filmstruck’s classics, BritBox’s British programming,
Brown Sugar’s African-American movies and shows, and even original and
exclusive shows by some of these outlets.
“We are seeing a plethora of these niche and focused
demographic streaming services that are multiplying by the week, and it speaks
to the appetite for content programming in this new era of cord cutting,” said
Dan Ives, chief strategy officer at GBH Insights.
That appetite is being fed by the likes of MHz Choice, a
$7.99-a-month streaming service that specializes in non-English-language,
European TV programming. Shows from Scandinavia, Germany, France and Italy
abound on MHz Choice. The streamer, which launched in late 2015, has also
expanded its focus eastward with its first program from Poland, “Wataha” (“The
Pack”) about a team of border guards working on the Polish frontier with
Ukraine.
“There’s a huge amount of unexploited product waiting to
premiere, and we saw an opportunity to evolve our business,” said Lance Schwulst, vice president of
content strategy at MHz Networks, the Falls Church, Virginia-based broadcaster
that runs MHz Choice. “This is the outcome of a natural evolution in
television.”
Schwulst said the demand for MHz Choice is reflected in
its “steady month-to-month” subscriber growth since its launch. The fact that a
subscription streaming service with no English-language programming can find an
audience among American TV viewers demonstrates how such streaming services
appeal to users who choose to pay only for the programming they really want.
For those willing to pay, there’s an internet-based TV
streamer made for just about everyone.
Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection are available
from Filmstruck for $6.99 a month, $10.99 a month, or $99 a year.
Those who like a mix of independent films, dramas and
international shows can pony up $6.99 a month, or $59 for a year for Sundance
Now, a subscription streaming service run by Sundance TV.
For $3.99 a month, Brown Sugar, owned by the Bounce TV
network, offers a library of African-American-led shows and movies, including
notable titles such as “Shaft” and “Foxy Brown” that hail from the 1970s. In
one of Brown Sugar’s promos, legendary actress Pam Grier describes the service
as, “Like Netflix, only blacker.”
Fans of British comedies and dramas also have multiple
resources to fill their desire for shows from across the pond. The British
networks BBC and ITV jointly run BritBox, a compendium of all-British
programming, that costs $6.99 a month. Acorn TV calls itself “The Best British
TV,” but also includes programs from Australia and New Zealand to Canada and
some non-English European nations, for $4.99 a month, or $49.99 for a year’s
subscription.
“Fairly early on, we realized we could create our own
(streaming) platform,” said Mark Stevens, chief content officer at Acorn
Brands, which runs Acorn TV under its parent media company, RLJ Entertainment.
“We’re very focused on a particular audience, and that helps us do great things
like find shows that might not have an audience in the U.S.”
Stevens said subscribers for Acorn, and RLJ’s other
streaming TV service, the $4.99-a-month Urban Movie Channel, continue to grow,
with the services reaching more than 700,000 subscribers in January, up from
620,000 in September 2017.
Michael Pachter, an analyst who covers Netflix and other
media companies for Wedbush Securities, said there appears to be a basic
philosophy that these specialized subscription streamers adhere to.
“I think the strategy for all of them is to replicate
what we have on cable TV now, which is essentially a single subscription to a
bundle of services,” Pachter said. “Ultimately, they’re betting that consumers
will cut the cord and subscribe to several different services, and they hope to
be part of the bundle.”
Like their bigger peers, the smaller, subscription-based
TV streamers recognize two things that are necessary to creating and holding an
audience: access and content. Apps for the services are available from all the
major app stores for use on set-top boxes, tablets and mobile phones.
And the emphasis on adding exclusive and original content
isn’t lost on the likes of Jan Diedrichsen, general manager of Sundance TV and
Sundance Now, which is owned by AMC Networks.
Sundance TV began life in 1996 as Sundance Channel when
it was launched as an offshoot of Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival.
“We might not have a multibillion-dollar budget,”
Diedrichsen said. “But, we take great care in what shows bring to the surface.
We’ve co-produced a number of shows at Sundance TV, which gives us this TV
network as a resource so that more than ever, when we co-produce for Sundance
TV, we secure the (streaming) rights for Sundance Now.”
Originally launched as Sundance Doc Club and specializing
in documentaries, the service re-branded itself as Sundance Now in 2016 and
spread its wings to include dramatic and comedic films, and TV programs in
English and foreign languages. Its original series include the highly lauded
French espionage show “The Bureau,” and the British drama “Liar,” starring
Joanne Froggatt, formerly of the PBS hit “Downton Abbey.”
In February, Sundance Now premiered “This Close,” the
first TV show created and produced exclusively for its service. Deaf actors
Shoshannah Stern and Josh Feldman created and star in the six-episode series.
“For us, it’s the perfect kind of thing we want to do at
Sundance Now,” Diedrichsen said. “We want to find the right voices and creators
we can champion, and we are looking at doing more of these things.”
Acorn is among those taking similar steps into original
programming produced for its service, as it has commissioned a second original
season of the British comedy-drama “Agatha Raisin,” based on the series of
novels of the same name.
“It did well in the U.K.,” said Acorn’s Stevens. “But the
network that had it there went another way, and now we’re taking over the whole
thing.”
Regardless of the kinds of programs they show, and the
audiences they aim to reach, smaller streamers make no bones about where they stand
in relation to the big leaguers such as Netflix in the streaming TV market.
“We always intended ourselves to be a complement to the
bigger guys,” Stevens said. “It’s important to note we are independent, and
we’re very focused on a particular audience. And we’ve seen consistent growth
year after year.”
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