From Netflix to Neon, why we’re paying streaming services more for less - The Front Page

Streaming services are starting to add ads to their services, while cutting down the content they make. Photo / File

Over the past decade, streaming services have transformed our lives. For many of us, we’re exclusively turning to Neon, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime for our daily entertainment over traditional TV.

But in 2024, what once seemed like a great deal is now going to start to look like a thing of the past.

This month, locally owned service Neon increased prices on its more expensive tiers, while its cheapest tier remains the same but with ad breaks in the programming. It follows Netflix and Disney+ adding ads to their services globally, and Amazon Prime will do the same thing later this year.

Media commentator and The Spinoff founder Duncan Grieve told The Front Page that these price hikes are coming even though these services are cutting back the content they are making.

“For about seven years in a row, the number of original scripted shows went up by 50 or 60 a year, and I think it peaked in about ‘21 or ’22, and it’s now markedly declining, and all of the streamers, including Netflix, somewhat shockingly, are all saying, ‘We’re going to be making less shows now’.

“That’s another dynamic in that you’re being asked to pay more for less content. But if everyone’s doing it at the same time, you don’t really have an option as a consumer apart from getting out of the whole thing entirely.”

Part of the cutback in production comes off the back of the strike by writers and actors in the United States last year. Studios have agreed to pay more in residual fees to creatives but will save money with fewer commissions as a result.

Grieve said the irony is that people who once complained about the cost of a Sky TV subscription are likely now paying the same for all the combined services.

Amongst these price hikes, the local screen production industry this month joined an international call for Governments to regulate American-based streaming services to reinvest in local productions.

Grieve expects legislation of some degree is inevitable. And while he supports the calls, he does not expect anything to change soon.

“We’ve got a history from Governments of all stripes of leaving technology companies alone. So it would be quite a big change to go back on that.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more from Duncan Grieve on the future of streaming and which services you should keep if thinking of cutting back.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. This episode was presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in crime/justice reporting who joined Newstalk ZB in 2016.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.