The Next Phase in the Streaming Iconoclasm

The WGA strike is well into its third week right now, and it does look like it's picking up steam.  SAG-AFTRA increasingly looks like it will join them, and while the DGA is less likely to be part of this conversation, it's not a guarantee that their negotiations will go well either.  The WGA strike has focused in large part on streaming, and how the WGA is not getting enough share of residuals from profits from services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max, and SAG-AFTRA would surely make this something they'd talk about given that the decline in cable reruns has made syndication less profitable unless you are getting a slice of the streaming pie.  But this past week, a clear hurdle in this conversation came up, and I pray that all three unions are paying attention, because the streaming giants are showing their cards early on how they could get around paying for streaming rights.

Disney announced this past week that they will be removing a large amount of original content from their streaming services Disney+ & Hulu as part of a cost-cutting measure.  Some of the bigger television titles that are leaving include Y: The Last Man, Willow, Dollface, and Big Shot.  Disney is doing this to save on streaming costs (including some residuals they likely would pay key stakeholders in these shows that would profit from their continued presence on the platform) and will gain a content impairment charge of $1.5 billion, a significant amount of money for the streaming platform, which reported Q1 losses of 26% (for the record, not due to Ron DeSantis, but due far more so to Disney losing the streaming rights to IPL cricket in India, which was a huge growth driver for the streamer in the country).

But here's the rub: Disney, essentially, is taking these products off of the shelf with no chance of them having a second life in any capacity.  None of these series have been released on a traditional, Region 1 DVD or Blu-Ray in the United States, and there's little indication any of them will be released on a cable platform like FX or Disney Channel so that they can be seen there.  These series are basically gone from the public consciousness, and after their removal, there will be no legal way for anyone to see them online.

This isn't entirely new, and in fact was pretty much how the entertainment industry worked before the 1980's when the growth of cable and the VHS market allowed consumers more power in what they watched.  But it does blaspheme the promise that consumers were sold on when it came to streaming and when it was pitched as an alternative to cable.  Streaming allowed you to watch whatever you want, whenever you wanted.  It's been clear for a few years that that sometimes means you have to chase your favorite shows as series like Friends and The Office to a new platform, but they seemed to find a new home.

This is a new phenomenon.  Shows like Willow and Big Shot were made specifically for streaming platforms-they were not broadcast shows that they bought and then lost the rights toward.  There has been a tacit understanding that such shows would always stay on these platforms, but we've seen more and more that these are transitory as well, but unlike The Office or Friends, they are unlikely to find a new home or get released for individual purchase.  The decline of home video has meant that these shows are unprotected (most streamers rarely release their original products on home video), and unlikely to find a new streaming platform, so they'll basically just disappear, both from public consciousness & from public access, or at least legal public access (I have to assume we're about to hit a golden age of online piracy with this behavior).

Filmmakers should take note, and thankfully some are.  Director Sian Heder tweeted, "the terrifying part of all of this is I don't own physical media of my own movies...if streamers took them down tomorrow they would disappear."  Heder, it's worth remembering, is the director of CODA, the 2021 Oscar winner and the only Best Picture winner to never have a legal, American DVD available for consumer purchase.  CODA isn't the only one.  Kevin Jacobsen (who hosts And the Runner Up Is, an awesome Oscars podcast you should check out, and which I've had the great joy of guesting on recently), put together a list of all of the Oscar-nominated streaming films that have never received a VOD or physical media release, and it's a pretty scary list.  Best Picture nominees Mank, Don't Look Up, & The Trial of the Chicago 7, acting nominees like Hillbilly Elegy, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, & The Tragedy of Macbeth...all of them could disappear completely if their studios removed them.  And don't say it can't happen-if you're an Oscar completionist, I strongly suggest you catch The One and Only Ivan this weekend, as the Visual Effects nominee is on the chopping block for Disney+, and it may not be a movie you can see again if you don't act fast.

All of this is to say-the entertainment unions need to make sure that as they're negotiating streaming residuals, that they are adding in protections for their products in the forms of guaranteed VOD/physical media releases (where they also get residuals) if they remove this content from digital platforms so they can't lose out on long-term revenues from their movies & TV.  It's clear that studio heads like Bob Iger & David Zaslav do not respect the artists who have made them muti-millionaires, and are looking for ways to pay them less.  But it's not just about that-if we start to strip away access to films and television of the past, the culture of movies becomes harder to maintain-if you just focus on the new and not the rich, constantly growing world of film & television, you're giving up your history.  In a town that runs on imagination & origin stories, letting their stories fall by the wayside does not bode well for its long-term health.