ANALYSIS. MultiChoice's biggest threat isn't Netflix. It's this.

by Thinus Ferreira

Much is made, correctly, about the threat that the red "N" poses to DStv but MultiChoice's biggest nemesis isn't Netflix. Like an oasis in a desert, it's something drying up and unravelling before your very eyes watching from the couch.

Like when Pangea as a supercontinent started to break up 250 million years ago, continental drift - or let's call it "content-al" drift is busy breaking MultiChoice's DStv apart.

Like the global tectonic forces that exert a constant push and pull on landmasses and which are impossible to control, content forces beyond MultiChoice's control are tugging at its content bundle that are transforming the traditional DStv pay-TV bundle before our very eyes.

Like the advent and rise of streamers like Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and the rest of the "Netflix and chill" litter, these shiny "New TV" baubles do pose a very significant threat to DStv, the SABC and eMedia's e.tv and all of their traditional, linear television offerings.

When you watch VIU, you're not watching SABC1. When you're watching something on Disney+ you're not watching the Discovery channel. That impacts ratings and revenue.

But that's not the biggest existential threat.

The biggest clear and present danger impacting DStv - and pay-TV as we know it worldwide - is the closure of the content pipelines and the gushing content water that is slowly going to ebb to a trickle. 

It's not that more people, willing to pay for TV, sign up and decide to pay for a streaming service. 

The biggest problem is that the value offering of the traditional pay-TV bundle is diminishing. 

The content on offer on a traditional pay-TV service like DStv - as is happening elsewhere in the world - is steadily being diluted, while the content offering on streamers (and therefore its inherent value offering) is steadily increasing.

This is increasing the pressure - those tectonic powers pulling it apart - on the value that resides in the bundle offering of what used to make traditional pay-TV great value.

As international media companies and studios are blatantly directing their production spending away from making content for (their) legacy pay-TV channels, those TV channels are slowly morphing into zombie channels.

What once made pay-TV channels like an MTV, E! or the Travel channel great, no longer exist. And consumers are noticing. 

The lack of  enough, and enough quality content to feed and fill the schedule line-ups of these traditional channels weaken the offering of traditional pay-TV. 

And there is little MultiChoice can do about it.

MultiChoice acquires and pays for a bundle it built and desperately tries to maintain for DStv subscribers - just like pay-TV operators worldwide - but there isn't anything it can really do when the supplier and "filler" of that channel isn't maintaining it and filling it with enough, good enough content.

This is happening because the "good enough" content is now earmarked to go directly, or first, to streamers. 

MultiChoice has ramped up the production of local content but that isn't enough to offset the unravelling of the overall value of the total channel bundle fraying before our eyes.

While DStv subscribers have forever complained about repeats and too many repeats, a growing problem facing the MultiChoice's of the world is that particular pay-TV channels no longer even have recent repeats since they have little to nothing original and are become repackaged zombie channels.

With that, these channels also lose their original appeal and what originally made them and their spin-off channels so sought-after.

MultiChoice is helpless to stop it. 

In America - where the traditional pay-TV model has collapsed - American companies from Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, to Disney and Comcast have strongly pivoted away from keeping their traditional pay-TV channels they've been providing for decades strong and viral in terms of programming.

These are now withering on the pay-TV vine.

Even worse: They see and recognise the declining value and monetary worth in these TV channels, to the point where they all want to get them off their balance sheets. 

Comcast is pushing out NBCUniversal's pay-TV channels into Spin Co., WBD is separating them out into their own division where they could potentially be sold off as well, and Paramount will surely kill off and get rid of a few after/if its Skydance buyout goes through.

And anyone who's ever watched The Disney Channel will know it's no longer the it-girl but got fully replaced by Disney+ - which is obviously also where the Kardashians clan now reside, also to the further disintegration of E!.

A lot less money is spent in America on making content for these traditional, linear pay-TV channels but redirected to making shiny, sought-after shows to grow the catalogues of streamers. 

A lot of this content is also simply not available to buy. Studios just don't include them in their offer lists. 

While M-Net as MultiChoice's shiniest show-off channel on DStv is still a strong linear destination at its pre-eminent 101 position on the remote control, it's becoming harder and harder to keep a channel like that sparkling when shows from what used to be from Showtime to Survivor SA simply no longer exist to build a schedule with.

WBD's HBO remains a lifeline to a channel like M-Net, but what will happen when even that output dries up? 

How does the M-Net 101 of the future remain competitive and attractive when its very premise was and is based on curating the best premium programming available on all of television, if that type of programming has shifted to being made and being available on streamers exclusively?

When the most valuable programming, and the most value for money programming is no longer to be found within a channel bundle like DStv, of course customers who used to be DStv subscribers are going to start switching to building their own self-tailored"bundles" with subscriptions to Netflix, Disney+ and others.

Even if MultiChoice orders and tells overseas TV channel suppliers to keep their TV channels provided to DStv strong and vital, there is little MultiChoice can do if there literally isn't the content made and assigned to put into those channel funnels in the first place from the origin end.

The decline of something like DStv isn't (just) because of a Netflix. 

It's because what used to hold TV Pangea together as a content mass and gave it its value, is steadily drifting and breaking apart.

How streaming viewership is measured in this ‘chaotic’ era for TV data

by Don Clarendon, TV Insider

Until a a decade or so ago, TV viewership stats were easily accessible through Nielsen ratings, and the only trick was knowing the difference between a ratings point and a share. But in the streaming era, TV viewership has become a guessing game.

Many streaming platforms don't share in-depth viewership data with the public, leaving it to companies like Nielsen, Luminate, and Parrot Analytics to estimate audience sizes for streaming TV series - for a cost.

And even then, streaming numbers for a given programme can differ from one analysis to another.

Net introduced its Top 10 lineup in February 2020, but that feature is only a ranking with no viewership numbers to be seen.

The streamer took another step toward ratings transparency in December 2023, when it started releasing twice-a-year engagement reports showing six-month viewership tallies for its offerings. That's progress, but streaming viewership data remains scarce.

When streamers are forthcoming, they tout their successes through various metrics. Here's some of the most common terminology in this evolving and often confusing field of audience measurement:

Hours/minutes viewed: The amount of time users have spent watching a given film or TV show. For hit TV shows - especially ones with many seasons available for streaming - this number can soar into the tens of billions of minutes.

Views/streams: The number of times a given film or TV show has been streamed. Netflix's latest engagement reports include the number of views as well as the hours viewed for each title.

Viewers: The number of people who watched a streaming title - or at least, the number of accounts that have. Amazon Prime Video and Max often use viewers as a metric for their public-facing viewership stats.

Cross-platform viewers: The number of viewers who watch a linear TV program live, on PVR, on-demand, or through streaming. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, a linear TV programme's streaming viewership numbers can be reverse-engineered if a TV network shares data about that programme's other viewership.

First X days: A qualifier for viewing statistics to show a film or TV show's reach and engagement over the first X number of days that the title has been streaming - the first 3 days, first 7 days, first 25 days, first 28 days, etc.

Completion/retention rate: The percentage of streaming viewers who finish a film or TV series, relative to the number who start it. The analytics company Digital I determined in 2022 that Netflix TV shows with completion rates below 50% were likely to be cancelled at the time, per What's On Netflix.

Binge rate: The percentage of streaming viewers who watch the episodes of TV series in rapid succession, relative to all of that title's viewers. 

In its viewership report for the second half of 2024 the analytics company Samba TV shared that docuseries and crime dramas have higher binge rates - defined in that report as the percentage of 31-day season finishers who binged that season in the first 5 days — than comedies or other dramas.

Starters, watchers, and completers: Categorisations Netflix has used for its viewers, as revealed in a July 2019 letter to a United Kingdom parliament committee. "Starters" are households that watch two minutes of a film or a TV episode, "watchers" are those that watch 70% of a film or a TV episode; and "completers" are those that watch 90% of a film or a season of a TV series.

MultiChoice: SuperSport isn't going to let streamers steal DStv sports rights

by Thinus Ferreira

MultiChoice is fiercely protective of its exclusive local and international sports rights that it pays millions for to bring to DStv and Showmax subscribers and has sown up these rights for several years into the future, with SuperSport that isn't going to let streamers steal it.

Internationally global video streaming services with deep chequebooks are starting to carve out and gobble up sports rights that used to be on linear television in many countries, from basketball and football to cricket and rugby. 

Streamers are also trying to break into live-streaming sports events of their own.

Netflix for instance last month attempted a Mike Tyson and Jake Paul boxing match in Las Vegas that however ended up crashing for millions of users - including South Africans - who tried to watch it, after it suffered production problems and froze due to buffering issues.

While MultiChoice is cognisant that rivals like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are encroaching on its sports rights turf, the pay-TV provider - which is the target of an aggressive buyout from France's Vivendi SE's Canal+ - says it has sown up several of the most valuable local and international sports rights for several years into the future.

MultiChoice also doesn't think that Netflix Africa and Amazon Prime Video have the appetite to acquire sports rights of African sports, and rights for sub-Saharan Africa, for the foreseeable future.

"On all of our critical rights we typically sign multi-year contracts," Tim Jacobs, MultiChoice chief financial officer (CFO), told me in an interview.

"Because of the high risk that we've had over the last couple of years of some of these big, international streaming services that can afford and have massive balance sheets - Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ - these are guys who can write out a big cheque and compete with us."

"Because of that, we've been very tactical about when we renegotiate these contracts and the duration of the contracts."

"We've managed to secure most of our big sports rights and we've managed to secure them for multiple years," he says.

"In that journey, we have also been able - on some of the really big rights, for example, some of our big football rights - we've actually been around the contract renegotiations been able to renegotiate lower prices," Tim Jacobs explains.

"In the past where there's been a lot of international hype around the leagues, what we've seen more recently, is that as these leagues have introduced some competition in some of the markets - for example, the English Premier League (EPL) - the two big competitors there are Sky on the one and BT on the other side."

"They bid up the cost of those league rights to the point where the guys couldn't monetise it and as a consequence, they all started pulling back. You see this in many instances in other countries in the world, where in France, Canal+ walked away from the French league and it made no sense being the dominant broadcaster there."

"They took a view of 'at a certain price point we can't monetise it'. In our markets what we've been able to do, is to go back and renegotiate with some of these big leagues and say to them 'guys, look at what's happening in Africa, look at the currency pressure, look at the pressure on consumers, we can't afford to pay you these exorbitant amounts".

"We've actually been able to negotiate slightly lower amounts."

Tim Jacobs says MultiChoice thinks it is unlikely in the foreseeable future that streamers like Netflix South Africa and Amazon Prime Video will pick up and show big sports that subscribers are used to accessing and seeing on DStv.

"That doesn't mean that we're not at risk of one of the big players coming in and outbidding us. But we've also got to be realistic about the probability of that happening."

"Amazon Prime Video has stopped doing all development of all general entertainment content in Africa. They're only supplying international content to the African market. Why? Because they're not getting any volume for it."

"Netflix has pulled out of all their Africa productions - that's a recent announcement. They're not producing anymore."

"Now if you don't have enough subscribers to justify local general entertainment offerings, chances are also that buying sports rights means that you're also not going to monetise that."

"We're not saying that it's impossible but it's one area of our business that we are very, very focused on and making sure that where possible we do secure those rights."

Growing consumer frustration with fast-rising video streaming costs

by Thinus Ferreira 

New consumer research from Deloitte has found growing frustration among consumers with the fast-rising costs of video streaming services.

According to the new market research, 64% of consumers are increasingly unhappy and frustrated with the constant, increasing prices of streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and the like, with over 44% who have actually cancelled at least one video-on-demand (VOD) subscription in the last 6 months.

The consumer market research is based on a survey which was conducted under 3 554 American consumers during June and July this year.

According to Deloitte, 15% of respondents said that they do password sharing and use someone else's video streaming service password, while 7% have watched pirated TV shows or movies and around 4% do both.

Under the so-called Gen Z and Millennials categories more than 35% of password sharers indicated that they don't want to pay for a streaming video service.

BBC Studios shutters its BritBox video streamer in South Africa after 3 years.

by Thinus Ferreira

The BritBox video streaming service is shutting down in South Africa and exiting in August just three years after it launched in South Africa and forms part of the ongoing trend of global streamer operators closing the taps on their money-guzzling video-on-demand plans for the African continent.

BritBox SA, run by BritBox International as a joint venture between BBC Studios and ITV, launched in South Africa in August 2021 as the fifth territory and only African region it expanded to. 

Earlier this year BBC Studios bought out ITV's share and took over full ownership of BritBox, also shutting down BritBox as a standalone service in the United Kingdom. 

BBC Studios runs the existing portfolio of BBC branded linear TV channels like BBC Brit, BBC Lifestyle, BBC Earth and CBeebies on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service.

In a statement, BritBox SA says "Sadly BritBox will be closing. Subscribers can watch all their favourite shows until August". BritBox joins the list of failed streamer attempts in South Africa like Altech Node, PCCW's OnTAPTV, Cell C's Black, Telkom ONE and Vodacom's Video Play. 

BritBox SA's PR company in South Africa in response to a media query says "BritBox is refocusing on its more established markets and the areas of the business that will have the highest opportunities for growth".

"A large proportion of the content on BritBox has been exclusive to the service in South Africa; however, we expect some of this great British programming will find a new home on other platforms and channels in the territory in the future. There is also a suite of BBC Branded channels on DStv - BBC Earth, BBC Brit, BBC Lifestyle, BBC UKTV, CBeebies and BBC World News".

It's unclear with how many subscribers BritBox exits South Africa and why BBC Studios felt that continuing with the investment into BritBox for the territory wouldn't bear fruit.

A year after BritBox launched in South Africa, Reemah Sakaan, BritBox International CEO, noted that the company was pleased with the performance of BritBox SA, that it had "a really fantastic start" in the country and had "thousands and thousands" of users. 

The shuttering of BritBox SA comes after the abrupt exit of AMC Networks' Acorn TV, another British streaming service, from South Africa in November 2022 after four years.

The shuttering of BritBox SA is part of a larger trend of the ongoing funnel of investment into streaming services in South Africa and across the African continent being markedly decreased.

It follows after a reset and decrease in budgets for content spending for streamers in the United States and with these decisions rippling outwards globally.  

Earlier this year Amazon MGM Studios shocked producers in South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent when all further projects and all TV and film projects already under development for its Amazon Prime Video service were abruptly cancelled. Amazon also retrenched its South African and Nigerian content commissioning teams.

Last year Netflix also said that it's decreasing its investment on content spending for African Originals, while Disney+ - which is only operational in South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa - also saw the culling of already-commissioned and filmed projects for the EMEA region.

MultiChoice's relaunched Showmax streamer as a joint venture with Comcast's NBCUniversal and Sky is the one African streaming service that has upped its capital expenditure and content investment over the past year to try and radically increase subscriber acquisition on the continent.

Paramount Global, which is struggling and under immense financial pressure in the United States, took too long to launch in South Africa and shelved plans to launch Paramount+ as a standalone service in the country. 

Instead, it recently opted to partner with MultiChoice and become just a branded studio tile destination within the relaunched Showmax service. Warner Bros. Discovery is yet to indicate when or whether it still plans to launch its streaming service Max in South Africa.

Showmax, Netflix SA, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ are the main video streaming services aggressively trying to scoop up subscribers in South Africa. While battling each other, they also contend with smaller services like SABC+, eMedia's eVOD, PCCW Media's VIU, Marquee TV, PrideTV and CineMagic all trying to make inroads into the space.

Video streaming service Acorn TV shutting down in South Africa after 4 years without explanation, asks users to cancel their subscriptions.

by Thinus Ferreira

Acorn TV is shutting down in South Africa four years after it became available in the country, as the next video streaming service going dark in South Africa's fiercely contested streaming wars.

Acorn TV, a global video streamer that launched in South Africa in December 2018 and 29 other countries after its launch in 2011 in America and Canada, is now shuttering without explanation, and offered a library carousel of British and international TV series, as well as some new original shows.

When it launched in South Africa, Acorn TV said that it was "excited for global fans of British and international drama and mystery to discover the wonders of Acorn TV with addictive series featuring stellar acting, beautiful settings, and gripping storylines" and that it would offer "a wide assortment of first-rate British and international television".

Acorn TV, owned by AMC Networks' RJL Entertainment, was competition for BritBox SA, jointly run by the BBC and ITV, that launched in South Africa in August 2021 also offering British on-demand television content, as well as for the linear British pay-TV channels available in South Africa like BBC Brit, BBC Earth, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies and BBC World News supplied by BBC Studios Africa to MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service.

Acorn TV that billed South African subscribers in rand and has a subscription price of R79 per month and an annual plan of R799 per rand, is now warning South African subscribers in a message on its website that "Acorn TV will no longer be available in South Africa" and that users should cancel their subscriptions.

"We regret to inform you that Acorn TV will shut down in South Africa by the end of 2022. If you signed up online, please cancel your subscription by going to My Acorn TV and then Manage Account", the streamer says.

Executives of AMC Networks didn't respond with answers to a media query made earlier this week seeking comment about why Acorn TV is shutting down in South Africa, its subscriber count over the past four years and what the experience of operating in the country has been like.

The shuttering of Acorn TV comes a week after Telkom got out of the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) business by handing its TelkomONE streamer over to the South African public broadcaster which was rebranded and repurposed as SABC+.

Acorn TV's demise in South Africa leaves TV viewers with video streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, eMedia's eVOD, MultiChoice's Showmax, BritBox SA, VIU, SABC+, TruthTV, WOW Presents Plus, MarqueeTV and Jou Afrikaans (JA).

 

ALSO READ: Video streaming service Acorn TV launches in South Africa and another 29 countries with the best of British telly.

MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela not nervous about Netflix, says pay-TV operator will compete against streamers in Africa offering live sports and local content.

by Thinus Ferreira

MultiChoice says it isn't nervous about Netflix and will compete against the giant global video streaming service in Africa by offering exclusive sports content and regionalised local content to DStv and Showmax subscribers who no longer want to watch everything from Hollywood.

MultiChoice, like all traditional pay-TV operators worldwide, is under extreme pressure to rapidly evolve and innovate in the lucrative yet highly contested space of subscription video content as digital streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video are gobbling up global users.

Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO, says MultiChoice isn't nervous about Netflix that is projected to reach 5.84 million subscirbers in Africa by 2026, followed by Disney+ launching around June 2022, that is estimated to quicklyreach 2.17 million subscribers in Africa by 2026. 

"I will not use the word nervous. We recognise it and we know there are competitors in the market and we need to take note of their activities in the market like all other competitors we have been competing with across the African continent," Calvo Mawela said in a TV interview broadcast Saturday on CNN International.

He said MultiChoice will keep a competitive edge against Netflix and other streamers through SuperSport's exclusive sports rights agreements with local and international sporting leagues and being able to broadcast sporting events live, as well as making local content, localised for specific African countries.

"So the competition will happen, but we will see some overlap between the two services as things evolve because of the content that we have positioned ourselves with: Best in sport and the home of local content in local languages," Calvo Mawela said.

"People still want to hear the languages that they speak on a day-to-day basis and that is where we are able to position ourselves."

He says that MultiChoice's "local content production is sitting at a library of 46 000 hours of local content. Through this investment that we have made in local content we have seen the response in terms of subscriber growth."

"In Kenya, we try to produce in the local languages, in the street lingo that they use on a day-to-day basis, and use Kenyans to be able to attract Kenyans. We do the same when we go to Nigeria; we do the same when we go to South Africa."

"The good thing about local content is that we are spending in local currencies in the markets that we are operating in."

"Gone are the days that Africans wanted to watch everything from Hollywood," said Calvo Mawela.

"They are more invested in their stories and their own people telling their own stories. That's why we have seen this growth where we are sitting with just over 20 million subscribers at the moment."

Calvo Mawela said that MultiChoice will continue to grow its linear pay-TV subscriber base over the next 5 years "and we will grow the online platform and will have more subscribers on the online side".

"What is exciting is the ecosystem that we are building. We are very deliberate by focusing on technology-driven businesses that are going to address the everyday needs of Africans on the continent and we think with that strategy we will be able to see great returns for the business going into the future."

Last month Sky in the United Kingdom launched its new Sky Glass smart TV set with a built-in decoder that now seamlessly bundles Sky's traditional pay-TV offering with almost all available video streaming services into one viewing portal. 

This was followed two weeks later by America's Comcast that launched its XClass TV set in the United States, doing the same thing in offering a seamless combined linear pay-TV and streaming experience as traditional pay-TV operators now directly take on smart TV set manufacturers like Samsung and LG to keep their subscribers locked in. 

MultiChoice hasn't announced any such bespoke smart TV play for DStv yet. In August last year MultiChoice announced a new DStv Streama decoder but never brought the "vapourware" to market.

 

The MultiChoice Group will report its interim financial results for the period ending 30 September 2021 on 11 November.

Study: Viewers say streaming services like Netflix offer better value for money than pay-TV like DStv.

by Thinus Ferreira

A majority of consumers around the world who took part in a new research study said by a wide margin of 69% that video streaming services like Netflix offer better value for money than traditional pay-TV services like MultiChoice's DStv, with 64% of viewers who said that video streaming content is more entertaining.

In new consumer research that Criteo conducted worldwide under 9 000 viewers, 63% of consumers in its The State of Video & Connected TV Survey said that they have been spending more time using video streaming services and watching streaming video content since the start of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

More than half (53%) of Millennials and Generation X consumers who took part said that they foresee spending even more time in future watching live streaming of content, while 31% in these age brackets said that they will be spending more money to watch and subscribe to video streaming services.

Smart TV sets are by far (73%) the most popular way that people across the world are watching video streaming content, followed by smartphones (52%), PCs and laptop computers (47%), and then tablets (29%).

Under the youngest viewers, mobile devices are the most popular device for video streaming. Three-fourths of Gen Z consumers watch video streaming streaming on their smartphones, while nearly two-thirds use their computer or smart TV.

In every other generation, the smart TV set is the most popular device for video streaming.

Almost two-thirds (61%) of consumers say that the cost of a video streaming service like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video is the most important factor determining whether they will use it, while the name percentage of users who make use of an AVOD service or one that shows adverts in order to save money, for instance eMedia's eVOD streamer.

Criteo's global survey shows that viewing of all types of video streaming content accelerated in 2020 and that 3 out of 5 people are watching more paid streaming services, with more than half who are watching more free streaming services, doing video game live streaming, and watching social media videos.

"Paid video streaming saw the highest viewing increases, with 3 out of 5 consumers saying they watch more paid streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+".

What's important?

According to the Criteo survey, across every generation, subscription cost and the quality of video content are the most important factors to consumers when they pick a video streaming service.

Other important factors include the flexibility to cancel their subscription anytime, and the availability of free content.

Interestingly, consumers are most likely to pay to stream movies and TV shows on-demand, but two-thirds want to get live news for free. Half of them want to watch live award shows and live gaming for free, while 2 in 5 want to see live sports for free.

Apple claims its AppleTV+ streaming service has less than 20 million subscribers and tells Hollywood's IATSE union it therefore doesn't need to pay production crews more.

by Thinus Ferreira

Apple, trying to get away from  having to pay workers more, has told a Hollywood trade union that its Apple TV+ video streaming service is doing much worse than rivals like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video and had less than 20 million subscribers by July this year in the United States and Canada.

Apple has never revealed any subscriber or user numbers for its Apple TV+ service that launched in late-2019 but Apple is trying to worm its way out of having to pay production crews more, claiming it has less than 20 million subscribers.

Apple told the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union - a union that represents TV and film workers who work in jobs like operating cameras, production designers, set builders, makeup artists and costume designers - that it only has 20 million subscribers in the USA and Canada, which according to an existing agreement allows Apple to pay IATSE crew a smaller discount-rate.

According to an IATSE spokesperson, under its current contract with Apple for Apple TV+ shows like Foundation, The Morning Show and Ted Lasso, high-budget productions are done on lower paying rates because Apple TV+ has less than 20 million subscribers in the USA and Canada.

IATSE is currently in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over a new contract, of which Apple is a member, in which it wants to do away with the discount rate.

The alliance negotiates on behalf of all of its members, including Apple's Apple TV+.

"Workers on certain 'new media' streaming projects get paid less, even on productions with budgets that rival or exceed those of traditionally released blockbusters," IATSE says in a press release, noting that negotiations had stalled.

David S. Goyer, the showrunner of the newly-released Foundation series on Apple TV+, for instance mentioned in interviews that the first season of 10 episodes of the new series had a massive budget similar to that of 5 movies. 

Apple is spending $15 million per episode on The Morning Show that entered its second season on Apple TV+.

IATSE says that it is getting ready for a strike, with ballots that will be send out on 1 October to its 150 000 members to authorise possible strike action.

"It is incomprehensible that the AMPTP, an ensemble that includes media mega corporations collectively worth trillions of dollars, claims it cannot provide behind-the-scenes crews with basic human necessities like adequate sleep, meal breaks, and living wages," IATSE says.

IATSE also objects to "excessively unsafe and harmful working hours, unliveable wages for the lowest paid crafts and consistent failure to provide reasonable rest during meal breaks, between workdays and on weekends".

"These issues are real for the workers in our industry, and change is long overdue. However, the explosion of streaming combined with the pandemic has elevated and aggravated working conditions, bringing 60 000 behind-the-scenes workers covered by these contracts to a breaking point."

"We risked our health and safety all year, working through the pandemic to ensure that our business emerged intact. Now, we cannot and will not accept a deal that leaves us with an unsustainable outcome."

IATSE originally agreed on a contract with video streaming services like Apple TV+ in 2009 under which these services would pay a lower production rate while they had under 20 million subscribers.

Although Apple's Apple TV+ has less than 20 million subscribers in the USA and Canada, Apple TV+ is available in more than 100 countries worldwide, including South Africa, although Apple TV+ doesn't seem to regard countries like South Africa as any kind of priority.

This means that Apple TV+ actually has more than 20 million subscribers globally, although the exact number isn't made known publicly.

ALSO READ: TV CRITIC's NOTEBOOK. How Apple axed Africa's press with the debut of David S. Goyer's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation on Apple TV+.