"Make it so", is the iconic catchphrase that Captain Jean-Luc Picard would say in
Star Trek: The Next Generation but when the upcoming new drama series starring Sir Patrick Stewart eventually makes a debut for South African viewers, it won't be on a "normal" TV channel like M-Net (DStv 101) on MultiChoice's pay-TV service
but on Amazon Prime Video's streaming service.
Fair warning: This is going to be a very "inside baseball"-ery type of column about television, and really only of interest to South African TV executives and hardcore TV lovers who understand and want to understand the
why of it, and what it really means in a broader sense for the future.
However, the distilled take-away from it is that Picard
Star Trek TV series going to Amazon Prime Video instead of to M-Net (where I was 99% sure I would be) is a very bad omen - part of the start of trend of international distributors' best content no longer automatically going to, and being on MultiChoice's DStv or its range of M-Net packaged-and-run channels.
That is bad for the South African TV lover. Although competition is good, MultiChoice and M-Net were a bit of a "one-stop TV shop". Now, more and more, consumers will have to pay more if they want to continue to see everything, with multiple pay-TV subscriptions to not just services like DStv, but also multiple video streaming services.
Let's start. While the SABC almost two decades ago simply gave up on trying to compete and acquire a wide range of American TV shows with some premium titles mixed in, the South African public broadcaster was supplanted by e.tv as a free-to-air broadcaster and especially M-Net because they had bigger budgets and more money to spend.
It meant that the M-Net channel (and later its other M-Net channels) managed to pick up the bulk of (and the bulk of the best) shows, always having almost the entire range of available American TV shows.
These shows were and are distributed - all part of specific collections of series - by a handful of American studios through their international distribution divisions, for instance CBS Studios International. Think
Dr Quinn Medicine Woman,
Oprah,
Judge Judy,
Dr Phil, and
JAG and
NCIS and on which channels you've watched those shows over the years.
A lot of them were on the SABC, until one by one, drop after drop, they disappeared from the SABC and series popped up on e.tv and M-Net. Now a systemic migration is again taking place and this time putting M-Net in the worrying position that the SABC ended up in.
A broken model
Part of the fun and personal joy/game as a TV critic and journalist has been and continues to be to take highly-educated guesses - without having any background information - as to where new American TV series would land in terms of South African broadcasters and channels.
After a while - and knowing the distributors, their catalogues, and South African operators and channels - it's been possible to predict with a very high level of accuracy and over years where a remake of
90210 or
Empire,
Dynasty,
Arrow,
The OC or
Desperate Housewives would land even before a broadcaster made an announcement or you saw a schedule.
No longer. That high-level of TV stormfront prediction - the predictive model - is broken. It still works but it doesn't work as well as it used to.
This is due to the addition and growth of multiple global video streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video now also competing for shows.
Meanwhile MultiChoice is making and allowing completely irrational and vampiric moves of content not based on any specific rhyme and reason when stealing shows from M-Net (DStv 101) for its Showmax streamer and weakening M-Net's offering.
Both of these new unpredictable elements within the model have dramatically diluted the predictability and guess-work of where what American shows would end up as first-run series.
Still with me? Well done!
A starship in TV's coal mine
Back to
Star Trek. The newly-revived franchise did
Star Trek: Discovery but that show was literally produced in conjunction with Netflix right from the beginning.
That means that while
Star Trek: Discovery is on CBS's own streaming service CBS All Access in the United States, Netflix acquired the global rights, which is why
Star Trek: Discovery is carried on Netflix South Africa.
After that CBS decided to to another live-action TV drama, the upcoming Picard
Star Trek series, also produced by CBS Television Studios. This one however, CBS decided to distributed through CBS Studios International.
That immediately meant that the chance fell to very small that this series would also be on Netflix. It did however dramatically increased the chance that the new Picard
Star Trek series would be on M-Net right?
After all,
The Good Fight, produced by CBS, also for CBS All Access, and also distributed by CBS Studios International is on M-Net (DStv 101).
The same water, going into the same pipe, at the same front-end, should all come out at the same other end, right?
Predictive models and journalistic guesses use past behaviour and actions to extrapolate possible future outcomes. The most likely outcome to me was that the new series had an extremely high likelihood to end up on M-Net.
Over the past while I actually specifically asked M-Net about the Picard
Star Trek series several times and to be kept up to date if there was an acquisition from CBS Studios International. I was ready and wanted to to break the news about it first.
But it was a wrong guess although from correct available information. On Monday I had to report that the show will be on Amazon Prime Video.
It's altogether worrying new trend data.
With the Picard
Star Trek series going to Amazon Prime Video the danger signal it sends is that MultiChoice's DStv and M-Net (although it won't happen soon and won't happen suddenly) over the long-term, is running the risk of becoming the "new SABC".
If M-Net isn't extremely careful it could become the new second-tier content platform in exactly the same way that M-Net took over the mantle from the SABC - existing in a level above the SABC but its best stuff stripped and consumers opting to go straight to video streaming services for the most premium shows.
How many of the premium-level
Game of Thrones type shows in future are going to be on M-Net? Will it be "Showmax first" that already looks as if its being positioned as "the new M-Net" with best shows now going there first?
For how many additional video streaming services will South African consumers and viewers have to pay as well just to see everything (of even just one franchise)?
That is why
Star Trek is a good example of a starship in the TV coal mine of what's to come.
If you want to see
Star Trek: Discovery you need to pay Netflix South Africa. If you want to see the Picard
Star Trek series you will need Amazon Prime Video. If you want to see the new
Star Trek animation series you will need to pay MultiChoice for DStv to get the Nickelodeon (DStv 305) channel that will carry that particular series.
It's too much - both literally in money terms, and figuratively in terms of consumer psychology and attention economy.
The poor consumer is going to have to pay an increasingly hefty price in subscribing to multiple content platforms, and then face the increased friction hurdle of trying to keep up with content discovery as they try to figure out what show is actually where.
That is something that even the journalists covering TV nowadays has a harder time trying to puzzle out than ever before.
