Signs of life appear in TV purchases

It’s been almost seven months since Hollywood ended its strikes, but momentum in the entertainment industry has still not been seized. “Survive till ’25” has become an informal slogan among entertainment workers.

But the global market for ordering new TV shows is starting to show signs of life, and is driven overwhelmingly by two players: Netflix and Amazon.

According to research firm Ampere Analysis, Netflix greenlit more scripted television projects in the first quarter of this year than in any quarter since 2022. Amazon had its most active quarter since Ampere started tracking market activity five years ago, the company said.

Many of their competitors are still taking a more cautious approach. As a result, Netflix and Amazon together accounted for 53 percent of TV series orders among major studios during the first three months of the year, Ampere said.

Most orders for the series have been placed internationally. Netflix is ​​particularly active in Britain, Germany, Spain and South Korea, the survey found, while Amazon is investing aggressively in India.

Netflix and Amazon also bought more projects in the United States compared to the end of 2023, but the increases were more modest. Netflix had its most active quarter domestically since the first quarter of last year. Amazon had its biggest quarter since spring of last year, according to the survey.

“We were in a post-strike environment where things were still a bit uncertain,” says Alice Thorpe, research manager at Ampere. “Netflix and Amazon are really the first here.”

Representatives for Netflix and Amazon declined to comment.

The two tech-rooted giants are in stronger financial positions than their competitors. Netflix earned more than $5 billion in profits last year and its stock price has soared over the past year. Amazon’s first-quarter profit beat Wall Street expectations and the company’s stock price has soared over the past year.

Wall Street is much more skeptical of their competition. In recent years, major media companies have drastically cut costs to make their streaming services profitable.

Some of those companies, such as Comcast and Paramount, also ordered more domestic projects compared to the second half of last year. According to Ampere, Amazon and Netflix together accounted for about a third of the major studios’ TV series orders in the U.S. in the first three months of the year.

However, volume is still significantly lower than the peaks of a few years ago.

TV production has been booming for much of the past decade, a period known as Peak TV. In 2022, about 600 scripted shows will premiere in the United States, more than triple the level of two decades earlier.

But by mid-2022, major studios began pulling back on their investments after Wall Street began to reject the “invest at any price” strategy to fuel their streaming services. Last year’s actors’ and writers’ strikes further fueled the slowdown.

In a vivid illustration of the shift, the number of television series submitted for nominations for the Emmy Awards plummeted this year. The drama category saw a 34 percent drop in nominations from last year, and the comedy category saw a 23 percent drop. Those drops are closer to 40 percent compared to 2022. (Emmy nominations will be announced on July 17.)

It remains to be seen whether all studios, especially in the United States, will start investing more aggressively again.

“It will be interesting if we see some more movement from the major studios, which I think we will see shortly,” said Ms. Thorpe, the research analyst at Ampere. She said she did not expect purchasing “to remain at such a low level.”

Union officials, in turn, are preaching continued patience for entertainment workers. Greg Iwinski, a television writer and council member of the Eastern Branch of the Writers Guild of America, made that point last month at a conference in Austin, Texas.

“It’s very easy to be afraid and say, ‘It’s all dried up, nothing’s happening, nothing will ever happen,’” he said. “There have to be television shows in 2026. There have to be television shows, there have to be movies. They have to exist, unless every single one of these companies that we’ve been negotiating with has just decided to stop existing.”