The latest global stats from the streaming search engine Just Watch shows the decline of Netflix.
Phrases like “the death of Netflix” are overblown, as the streaming platform is still the largest and most popular. However, the aggregated “others” presumably include the likes of Crunchyroll and Paramount, perhaps even the iPlayer, which are now larger than Netflix in JustWatch’s market share analysis.
It reminds me of fantasy games in which a hero has to fight off a bunch of smaller rivals like goblins (although it’s perhaps unwise to call Amazon Prime Video a goblin) because it’s the collective, not an individual, that’s whittling Netflix down.
The most significant factor might simply be people going back to work or spending more time outside and not watching as much TV.
Prime Video is the closest to beating Netflix, but “overtaking” is the wrong word to use, as Amazon’s platform is declining more slowly than Netflix. HBOMax and Disney+ are growing, and so is AppleTV+, but more erratically, and none of the rivals is racing upwards.
Here in the UK, Netflix’s top movie for this weekend if Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s Your Place or Mine.
Netflix has exclusive worldwide distribution rights to Aline Brosh McKenna’s (The Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) movie. What Netflix has found over the years is that they have to pay more to seal these exclusives or invest in their own, and all the while, companies like Paramount and Disney are yanking their IP from the platform to in-house at their own platforms.
