Mic Drop #1: Not one, but *five* mic drops from January 2020 Predictions

Revisiting My 2020 Predictions for Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, & Hulu

I connect the dots across the OTT streaming marketplace for your competitive edge at PARQOR.com. Here, I will be highlighting and celebrating “mic drops” on my apredictions from past PARQOR mailings.

This week, I am going back to not one, but six pre-COVID predictions for 2020 I made back in January about Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, & Hulu

If you are an existing PARQOR Member, you can download the PDF of my predictions for free, or if not, at the same link with the coupon code SUBSTACK (automatically appended to this link).

Let’s revisit them nine months into 2020.

(1) Netflix

Prediction: Netflix will be fine, if not larger by year's end, and both Disney+ and a disappointing HBO Max will prove that popular, and expensive, rerun shows and movies performed better within Netflix's ecosystem than outside of it.

Netflix is larger, HBO Max is disappointing, and we have no PR or data from Disney about whether its content is performing better on Disney+ than on Netflix (which is something you can imagine them highlighting).

So…

(2) Apple TV+

Prediction: Apple TV+ will surprise on content quality, and with a built-in base of 1B+ devices, is best positioned to convert viewers at scale

Billy Crudup wins an Emmy for The Morning Show, Tom Hanks drama Greyhound broke records on Apple TV+, Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso is becoming a viral and critical hit, and Apple TV team has just stolen Martin Scorsese away from Netflix with a multi-year deal. Despite a slow start, Apple TV+ is beginning to surprise the market.

(3) Disney+

Prediction: Disney+ is going to be an amazing launch story, a disappointing first half, and then an amazing second half growth story

Let’s come back to this.

(4) Amazon Prime Video

Prediction: Amazon Prime Video lives a mostly but not entirely unremarkable subsidized existence, and will continue to do so in 2020

“Mostly but not entirely unremarkable” may be the best description of a service which has gotten little publicity for its show except for the second season its hit, The Boys.

So, yup.

(5) Hulu

Prediction: Hulu faces an uncertain future in 2020, as it is not clear how Disney will manage it, and the FX on Hulu value proposition seems niche

Hulu and Disney BAMTech engineering teams are not getting along, Hulu’s engineers have resisted being absorbed into Disney’s tech team, and Hulu is the slowest growing service of Disney’s three DTC services (Hulu, Disney+, ESPN+).

Uncertainty, indeed. I wrote more about this on the PARQOR Blog.

(6) HBO Max

Prediction: For HBO Max to succeed, AT&T will need to reconcile its technical and creative cultures - it will struggle to do so

WarnerMedia appointed a new CEO, Jason Kilar, about four months after this post. He has been leading a reorg to solve this very problem.

Now, back to Disney…

(3) Disney+

Prediction: Disney+ is going to be an amazing launch story, a disappointing first half, and then an amazing second half growth story

I got the “amazing launch story” part right - 60MM+ subscribers and growing.

I also got the “disappointing first half” part right…. buuuuut that was because of disruptions to production COVID , not because of Disney’s execution (meaning, I did not have once-in-a-100-year global pandemic in mind when I wrote this).

And, last, we don’t know whether its second half growth story is amazing, but with Season 2 of The Mandalorian and MCU’s WandaVision, the second half of 2020, and especially Q4, are shaping up to be an extraordinary end to an extraordinary year.

On this last one, in honor of Schitt’s Creek winning all seven Primetime Emmy awards for comedy, I give my 2020 take on Disney+ a:

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(If this email was forwarded to you, I am a former Viacom executive who connects the dots across the OTT streaming marketplace for your competitive edge at PARQOR.com. You can follow him on Twitter, where he has fun exchanges with other folks interested in the streaming business, or in LinkedIn, which he still hasn’t figured out as a promotional channel).