Paid TV Streaming Services Can’t Buy Happiness for Hollywood

But first, what’s on (free) TV?

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The big story

Changing channels

If the best things in life truly are free, Hollywood is about to learn a brutal lesson.

More viewers are opting for free TV options in a move threatening to upend Hollywood’s decades-old business model of people paying for content, writes Business Insider’s Lucia Moses.

Hollywood spent years (and hundreds of millions of dollars) building massive libraries that people would be willing to subscribe to. By 2022, the business model was proving difficult, and cheaper, ad-supported options were offered.

But what’s really caught people’s attention over the past year has been “free, ad-supported TV” or FAST services. Chief among them is YouTube, which became the first streaming TV service to surpass 10% of total viewing this July, according to Nielsen. Netflix, meanwhile, sits at 8.4%.

Tubi, The Roku Channel, and Pluto TV are also gaining on their paid counterparts. This July, the biggest FAST services saw their share of TV viewing jump to 14.8% from 12.5% the previous year. Paid streaming’s 17.2% share, meanwhile, remained flat.

Every industry is dealing with cost-cutting consumers. But FAST’s rise isn’t just about saving a couple bucks. Many of the FAST services mirror old-school linear TV that let viewers flip through channels, making it an easier way to passively watch TV.

Legacy media companies have their own FAST services, but that’s only half the battle.

Fox’s Tubi has been the fastest-growing streamer in the past year, and is a hit with Gen Z. Paramount (Pluto TV) and Comcast (Xumo) are also in the mix, with Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly not far behind.

But growth is one thing. Making money is something else entirely. Despite launching over a decade ago and having 80 million monthly active users, Tubi isn’t profitable.

Figuring out how to make money from free TV is a big enough problem. But that’s not the only fire legacy media is fighting. A recent ruling against a to-be-launched sports streamer has opened questions about the future of the cable bundle and has competitors out for blood.

But Hollywood’s biggest problem might be its inability to keep pace with an audience that expects its content at lightspeed.

YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have the benefit of an endless amount of user-generated content that’s always atop the cultural zeitgeist. Very demure. Very mindful.

Meanwhile, the traditional TV model takes much longer. And what once was considered hot can very quickly cool off when viewers finally get their hands on it. (See: “The Bear” season 3.)

And trying to replicate the magic of YouTube or social media on television comes with its own issues. Just ask Amazon about its MrBeast project.

News brief

Top headlines

3 things in markets

1. Welcome to the AI-driven stock market, where everything is made up and the points don’t matter. When interest rates are high, companies usually tighten their purse strings. But the opposite has been true amid the AI boom, as Big Tech continues to invest heavily. And it’s not slowing down.
2. Two Sigma’s leadership shakeup. The $60 billion fund’s billionaire cofounders, John Overdeck and David Siegel, grabbed headlines for a personal spat that eventually spilled into public view. Now they are both stepping down, with Carter Lyons and Scott Hoffman replacing them as co-CEOs.
3. Warren Buffett’s bittersweet $1 trillion. The legendary investor’s conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, briefly surpassed a $1 trillion market cap on Wednesday. But the milestone highlights a pain point Buffett has previously lamented: Berkshire’s massive size makes it harder to deliver great returns.

3 things in tech

1. Nvidia’s stock dips as earnings fall short of highest expectations. Though the chip giant exceeded second-quarter expectations when it reported earnings Wednesday, it fell short of some of its loftiest guidance for Q3. That triggered a small slide of 5% in after-hours trading. During the earnings call, CEO Jensen Huang faced questions about the return on AI spending and drilled down on several places he sees profits coming from.
2. The 9 factors to consider before buying AI, according to Amazon. Leaked Amazon sales documents show which key components customers take into account when buying generative AI models. The guidelines offer a clue into the e-commerce giant’s AI strategy.
3. So ordered, with help from the robots. Legal tech is undergoing an AI revolution as lawyers seek to outsource the more tedious parts of their job to artificial helpers. These are the 15 startups that have raised the most funding from VCs like A16z and Menlo Ventures

3 things in business

1. Your credit score anxiety is a real money-maker. Credit-card companies have figured out how to profit from consumers’ anxiety, offering credit monitoring add-ons for a cost. But many credit card owners don’t know that a lot of those services are available for free.
2. Wall Street’s big green flip-flop. Banks once promised to fix the planet; now, they’re making an about-face. Here’s why the big banks are backsliding on their sustainability promises.
3. Sam Altman’s rocky year has nothing on OpenAI’s fundraising frenzy. Despite a string of high-profile controversies this year, OpenAI’s fundraising momentum shows no signs of slowing. The AI pioneer is in talks to raise more funds that would value it at over $100 billion.

In other news

What’s happening today

• Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s interview with Dana Bash airs on CNN.
• Revised GDP data for Q2 is released.
• Second season of “The Rings of Power” drops on Prime.
• Gap, Best Buy, Campbell’s Soup and other companies report earnings.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Milan Sehmbi, fellow, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.