OPINION: Streaming is no better than cable 

In 2007,  at the time DVD rental company, Netflix launched its new service where people were able to watch the movies they wanted to on their computer without having to wait for Netflix to mail them a DVD. Netflix starting this service changed the way media was consumed forever. This decision led Netflix becoming the biggest streaming service in the world at one point and showed other companies that this format could work to distribute content.  

For a few years, this system was great, and there were about three major services that weren’t too expensive. However, now it seems that every company wants to launch its own service, and streaming has become no better than cable. 

A lot of this comes down to corporate greed. Companies like NBC saw how well their shows “The Office” and “Parks and Rec” did on Netflix, and they realized they could make a lot of money if they made their own streaming service. So, at the end of 2020, when Netflix and NBC’s deal to lease these shows came to an end, NBC didn’t re-sign with Netflix and put them on their own streaming service, Peacock.  

This move hasn’t been the most successful for NBC. In 2021, the first full year of service for Peacock, the service only brought in $778 million in revenue, while losing $1.7 billion. Things are looking up for Peacock however, in the first quarter of 2022, Peacock added four million subscribers and introduced a cheaper option for the service.  

This doesn’t negate the fact that there is still no real need for Peacock. NBC doesn’t have all this great exclusive content that they can fill up a streaming service with like HBO. They have a few good, popular shows, but that is really their only draw to the service. They easily could’ve made a deal with an already existing service, like they had prior to peacock, that would’ve been more beneficial to the consumer and would’ve kept their shows popular, but they decided they need their own service that may not even succeed.  

It’s not just NBC that is doing this, all sorts of companies are trying it. All these individual companies think that they can have their own successful services. Paramount+, CNN+, and so many other media companies have tried launching their own services, but they just don’t have enough content to compete with the other major services. 

This doesn’t mean that there should be a monopoly on the streaming market. There needs to be a few, and there are some companies that make sense to have their own. Disney, while it has its own other issues, has killed it with Disney+. They have decades of good, popular content, while also having great originals. It makes sense that Disney has their own service, however, it doesn’t make sense that they have three. 

Disney owns both Disney+ and ESPN+ while also having a 60% stake in Hulu. To combat people having to pay full prices for all of these, they put together a bundle where they get all three for $13.99 a month. This is a pretty good deal, but it also is starting to sound like cable.  

While bundles can be great and is probably the only good option at this point if companies start to make bundles out of their services and you have to buy multiple bundles, what is really the difference between streaming and cable? There really isn’t one. Streaming is getting equally as expensive if you want to get everything, and the price was one of the biggest reasons streaming became as popular as it was.  

Mark Warren can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @MarkWarren1832