According to a new report from Luminate, we learn that TV production was down 7% in 2024, with streaming franchises including Marvel, Star Wars and Rings of Power all underperforming, although The Acolyte still came in second place on Disney+, behind Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Streaming production in the U.S. is still down significantly from pre-strike levels, the report states. Netflix alone produced 22% less U.S.-based series last year than in 2022, and even still it remains far ahead of its competitors in that arena. Prime Video is the only streamer that hasn’t reduced U.S.-based production output in the last two years.
It’s not just less series being produced but also less episodes overall of TV that is contributing to this ongoing contraction, even as long-running series continue to prove most valuable, according to Luminate’s report.
According to Luminate, the drop in total episodes and total hours of programming between 2023 and 2024 has escalated from 17% to 20%. For drama series alone, there’s been a decline from nearly 3,400 episodes ordered in 2019 to just 2,492 in 2024.
Drama appears to be the least impacted genre, with comedy, animated and unscripted all suffering greatly in the last year. Between 2022 and 2024 total unscripted episodes produced are down by 33%, while over the last five years the total number of comedy episodes produced is down 47%.
As mentioned, Netflix continues to dominate, not just in the streaming world but overall in the TV landscape. The company had seven of the top 10 most-watched series in 2024, led by Fool Me Once, which had 12B minutes watched.
Luminate also notes that streaming franchises — including Marvel, Star Wars and Rings of Power — all underperformed last year. The second season of Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings series was down 60% in total minutes watched compared to Season 1, and Disney+ didn’t fare much better with offerings like Echo and Agatha All Along, which underperformed previous Marvel streaming series.
But, juxtapose that with the fact that those big IP franchises were still the best performing series on Disney+, and the solution becomes unclear. Percy Jackson and the Olympians was top dog on Disney+ last year with over 3B minutes viewed, and The Acolyte came in second place with 2.7B.
Read the full Luminate report here, and stream The Acolyte on Disney+ now.
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