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The Medium delivers in-depth analyses of the media marketplace’s transformation as creators, tech companies and 10 million emerging advertisers revolutionize the business models for “premium content”.

Each fiscal quarter, The Medium identifies three or four new trends that have momentum and seem poised to play out at a larger scale in 2023. These key trends pinpoint dynamic and constantly evolving developments in the media marketplace that are emerging from incremental shifts or fundamental changes. The bi-weekly mailings analyze these trends as developments emerge in real-time. 

Read the three key trends The Medium will be focused on in Q4 2023. This essay covers "the less-discussed lens on how the demand for “premium content” is being redefined by creators, tech companies and 10 million emerging advertisers" and "In the shift from wholesale to retail models, there are many business models that delight consumers but no single, dominant one."

Netflix surprised everyone with the release of “What We Watched”, a report with viewership data for 99 percent of its movies and shows from the first six months of 2023. The data was shared in an Excel spreadsheet with four columns but over 18,000 rows. 

The move was interpreted as related to the recently-ended Hollywood writers and actors strikes. CNBC’s Alex Sherman shared on X/Twitter that “creators were upset Netflix went public with all the info abruptly without speaking to them about their individual numbers first.” However, co-CEO Ted Sarandos told reporters that the new data releases were intended, partially, to help resolve “an atmosphere of mistrust over time with producers and creators and the press about what was happening." The timing was part of "a continuum for several years", and was "not driven by anything" else.

There are more answers to the question of timing than Sarandos lets on. A positive spin is that Netflix is now openly asserting what IAC Chairman Barry Diller asserted back in 2019: Netflix “won the game” a long time ago. It is now the market standard in streaming. A negative take is that Netflix’s recent iterative pivots into gaming, livestreaming and advertising fall outside of Netflix Executive Chairman and Co-Founder Reed Hastings’ focus on subscription streaming (and he notoriously resisted advertising for over 15 years). “What We Watched” distracts from Netflix’s growing need to adapt to rapidly changing consumer behaviors. Streaming is important to the business, but its future lies as in its new initiatives, and the data release distracts from that.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Key Takeaway

The limited dataset of “What We Watched” tells the story of Netflix as a streaming behemoth. Without additional data from gaming, livestreaming and advertising, it seems vulnerable to "The Innovator's Dilemma".

Total words: 1,500

Total time reading: 6 minutes