No End To The Fun From Fantasyland

Michael Hedges November 15, 2021 Follow on Twitter

Fantasy is near and dear to all entertainment. Consumers invest their hard earned cash in the thrills and chills offered - at a distance - through stories, songs, dancing and costumes. That distance is greater with coronavirus lockdown restrictions. A great many people have turned to streaming media platforms for relief. Executives of those companies are rarely seduced by make-believe themselves.

It was another amazing day last Friday (November 12) for the streaming video world. The market capitalization (market value) of Netflix jumped above that of the Walt Disney Company; US$302 billion versus US$290 billion. The day was, “ironically,” noted Variety (November 12), “Disney + Day,” a marketing event intended to pump-up excitement for its streaming video service. Stock traders, followed by various expert analysts, were not pumped-up.

Actually, Netflix’ market value was bigger than that of Disney in the spring of 2020. That coincided with dramatic changes in consumer behavior responding to coronavirus seriousness. Netflix became the go-to streaming service with the fourth season of The Crown series and 365 Days, the film thriller from Poland. Disney + had only been available for a few month with Vanessa Morrison named president of streaming for Walt Disney Studios.

Market analysts’ agita was mostly based on perceived lackluster Disney+ subscriber increases. In fact Disney+ added 2.1 million subscribers, noted the company’s fiscal Q4 report, and 444 million the last year to reach 118 million paying customers. The experts had expected 9.4 million new subscribers, said CNBC (November 10).

By contrast, Netflix posted 213.5 million worldwide subscribers for Q3, roughly equivalent to the Disney results period, noted CNN (October 19). It was a boost of 4.4 million subscribers after two “soft” quarters. As usual, more than half came from outside the US and Canada, which only bumped up by about a million, year on year, to 74 million. The biggest increase came from the Asia-Pacific region.

"Netflix is a global, direct-to-consumer service which enables creators to reach broader audiences and gives our members an even greater choice of stories to enjoy," said the Netflix letter to investors in October. "There is no better example of this than Squid Game." That’s the rather dystopian South Korean drama. It’s a huge hit. It was released on Netflix barely two months ago.

More people in the US have watched the Squid Game English-dubbed version than the subtitled version, noted the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) (November 12). This comes as no surprise; American viewers have never warmed to subtitles, too much like ads. Foreign films and series, though, are always new territory for somebody. This is definitely an attraction. Novelty is an attraction.

Holding that same thought, Disney+ arrived in South Korea and Taiwan, reported Variety (November 12), joining Malaysia, Thailand (as Hotstar) and Singapore. For those countries, Disney has acquired a spin-off of Korean variety show Running Man and Japanese media drama Tokyo MER. Apple TV Plus launched in South Korea last week. Amazon Prime Video recently entered Singapore through a partnership with the StarHub platform. None of the major international streaming services operate in China.

Netflix is known for its strategy of offering something new all the time, from blockbusters mixed with foreign films and series. It is the “world’s biggest buyer of unscripted programming,” noted Bloomberg (November 12). That means reality TV shows. The streamer is also going full-bore into video games.

Disney is, of course, Disney, a powerful global brand name. As such there are always visions of greatness and chief executive Bob Chapek spilled the beans on that recent earnings call with investors, reported Hollywood Reporter (November 10). “Our efforts to date are merely a prologue to a time when we’ll be able to connect the physical and digital worlds even< more closely, allowing for storytelling without boundaries in our own Disney metaverse, and we look forward to creating unparalleled opportunities for consumers to experience everything Disney has to offer across our products and platforms, wherever the consumer may be.”

He actually said the word that weeks earlier sealed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg fate as another billionaire purposely disconnected from reality. Noted the eternally skeptical Eleanor Elcott in the Financial Times (October 21): “It might be cool to move to another planet during a video game, but do you really need to see your colleague’s face in 3D instead of 2D during the morning meeting? I’m a little uncertain.”

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