Peacock and Paramount +
Netflix, Disney +, and Prime Video will face nasty competition in 2022
More and more American film studios are pushing their exclusive streaming offers onto the German market (symbol picture)
© Jean-Michel Niester / Picture Alliance
Since Disney + started two years ago, streaming providers Netflix and Prime Video have been losing more and more rights to exclusive content. Paramount + and Peacock will make more films and series disappear this year.
Thanks to Netflix and Prime Video, the streaming trend finally came to Germany a few years ago. In addition to own productions such as “House of Cards”, “Stranger Things” (Netflix) and “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” (Amazon), customers were also able to watch American films and series from other production companies on the platforms again and again. In the meantime, however, these are increasingly rare to find in the range.
Many of the major American production companies have recognized the success of streaming and have created their own offerings in recent years. After Disney +, Peacock and Paramount + are also launching in Germany this year. Both will be integrated into the offer of the pay TV channel Sky.
Film studios start their own streaming offers
NBC Universal already planned to bring its streaming service Peacock to the German market in the summer of last year. Although this announcement was never kept, the industry magazine “Golem” now reports that Peacock will be launched this year. The streaming service includes around 1740 films and 570 series from the Hollywood studio Universal Pictures in the USA. In the United States, both a $ 5 ad subscription and a $ 10 ad-free version are available. It is not yet known whether two models will also be offered in Germany.
The Studio Paramount is already one step further. With its Paramount + offer, it is already clear that there will be two-pronged marketing here too. There are currently 2,140 films and 586 series on sale in the United States. The streaming service will start as a single offer in early 2022. Customers who already have a “Cinema” package from Sky will receive Paramount + free of charge.
Competition for Netflix and Prime Video
The launch of two new streaming services could pose a serious threat to Netflix and Amazon. Although both are increasingly relying on their own productions, this by no means compensates for the loss of licensed films and series from several decades of cinema and TV stories.
Since Disney + has shown exclusively popular blockbusters such as “Star Wars” and “Avengers” as well as its classic cartoons in Germany, the program of Netflix and Amazon has already been demonstrably thinner. While many of the industry giants’ licenses are expiring, Disney is expanding its program almost weekly. More than 1,540 films and 420 series are currently offered on Disney +.
The great advantage of the production companies is their exclusivity. If you missed a film in the cinema, you can often access it a few weeks later on Disney +. Some blockbusters in the cinema can now even be watched on the laptop parallel to the big screen. In the recent past, this included both the great Marvel films “Black Widow” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, as well as “Eternals”, which will be released on January 12, 2022.
Customers need different subscriptions
Although Peacock and Paramount + have not even arrived, many series fans have been waiting for the launch of another US streaming provider for years: HBO Max. The range from the Warner Bros. film studio has been available in six European countries since the fall, with 14 more to follow this year . In Germany, however, Sky owns the rights exclusively until 2026. Those who want to watch “Game of Thrones” are therefore still dependent on a technically rather backward offer.
But even if the new Warner boss Jason Kila finds a way out of the contract, a further fragmentation of the streaming market is unlikely to meet with enthusiasm among many film fans. After all, it remains questionable whether users will be willing to pay for several subscriptions at the same time, despite shorter waiting times, reliable releases and more content in better quality.