It's been nearly seven months since the Hollywood strike ended, but the entertainment industry has yet to catch up. “Survive to 25” has become an unofficial slogan among entertainment workers.
But the global market for new TV show orders is starting to show some signs of recovery, and this has been driven primarily by two players – Netflix and Amazon.
According to research firm Ampere Analysis, Netflix greenlighted more scripted television projects in the first quarter of this year than any quarter since 2022. Amazon had its most active quarter since Ampere began tracking market activity five years ago, the firm said.
Many of their competitors are taking a more cautious approach still. As a result, Netflix and Amazon collectively captured a 53 percent share of scripted television series orders among major studios in the first three months of the year, according to Ampere.
Most of the series orders have been placed internationally. Research shows that Netflix has been particularly active in the UK, Germany, Spain and South Korea, while Amazon is investing aggressively in India.
Netflix and Amazon also bought more projects in the United States than at the end of 2023, but the increase has been more modest. Netflix had its most active quarter domestically since the first quarter of last year. Amazon had its biggest quarter since the spring of last year, according to the research.
“We were in a post-strike environment where things were still a bit uncertain,” said Alice Thorpe, research manager at Ampere. “Netflix and Amazon are really the frontrunners here.”
Representatives for Netflix and Amazon declined to comment.
Both of these tech giants are in a stronger financial position than their competitors. Netflix made more than $5 billion in profits last year and its stock price has skyrocketed over the past year. Amazon's first quarter earnings exceeded Wall Street expectationsAnd the company's share price has risen sharply in the last year.
Wall Street has been far more skeptical of its competitors. For the past few years, major media companies have been cutting costs to turn their streaming services profitable.
Some companies, like Comcast and Paramount, also ordered more domestic projects than they did in the second half of last year. Combined, Amazon and Netflix accounted for nearly a third of scripted television series orders in the United States among the major studios in the first three months of the year, according to Ampere.
Still, the volume is still significantly lower than the peak levels seen a few years ago.
The past decade has seen a huge boom in TV production, known as Peak TV. Nearly 600 scripted shows premiered in the United States in 2022, three times the level of two decades ago.
But in mid-2022, major studios started Withdrawing an Investment Wall Street began to express displeasure over the strategy of investing at any cost to promote streaming services. The actor and writer strikes last year further fueled the recession.
A prime example of this change is the number of television serials. submitted for nomination Nominations for the Emmy Awards have fallen sharply this year. The drama category has dropped by 34 percent compared to last year, while the comedy category has dropped by 23 percent. Compared to 2022, this drop is close to 40 percent. (Emmy nominations will be announced on July 17.)
It remains to be seen if every studio, especially in the United States, will begin investing more aggressively again.
“It would be interesting if we see a little more movement from the major studios, which I think we’ll see soon,” said Ms. Thorpe, the Ampere research analyst. She added that she did not expect buying “to continue at such low levels.”
Union officials, for their part, are preaching continued patience for entertainment workers. Gregg Iwinski, a television writer and council member of the Eastern branch of the Writers Guild of America, emphasized this point at a conference in Austin, Texas, last month.
“It's very easy to get scared and think, 'It's over, nothing's happening, nothing will ever happen.'” he said. “There have to be television shows in 2026. There have to be television shows, there have to be movies. They have to exist unless every single one of the companies that we've talked to has decided to stop existing.”
