Report: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu abdicating movies, hunkering down on TV

The leading online-based, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services including Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus are retreating from licensing movie content but loading up on TV show rights, according to a report issued last week by Piper Jaffrey analyst Michael Olsen.

Olsen's report, obtained and reported on originally by Deadline Hollywood, details what each of the top SVOD services offer in terms of top 50 movies and 75 TV shows this year compared to four years ago.

Notably, Hulu Plus had 51 percent of TV's top-rated shows for the year vs. 44 percent four years ago. Amazon increased its TV inventory from 7 percent to 12 percent of the top 75 shows, while lowering its movies quota from 12 percent to 6 percent.

Launching more of its original TV content, Netflix stayed flat in terms of licensed TV, paying rights for about 32 percent of the top shows, down only 1 percent from four years ago. Olsen reports that 12 percent of current top films are found on Netflix, a decline of 2 percent from four years ago.

The report is interesting news to the pay TV industry because many believe the industry is behind on its competitive response to SVOD, TV Everywhere, and is in need of an edge. Indeed, if TV Everywhere were fully operational, or reasonably close to being so, no SVOD service could compete with the pay TV industry in terms of first-run TV programming being available for multi-screen viewing.

For more:
- read this Deadline Hollywood story

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