Data reveals that, except for Amazon and Apple, most major streaming platforms will increase their spending on general entertainment and news content by less than 10% over the next few years. Even Amazon and Apple, the tech giants, will see their growth rates decline significantly compared to the so-called peak television era.
Apple’s late entry into original content with Apple TV+ in 2019 makes its figures an outlier, but Amazon’s case is more telling. Amazon’s series content spending growth is expected to fall from a robust 22% CAGR between 2019 and 2023 to just 12.6% from 2023 to 2026, reflecting the broader industry squeeze.
Despite the industry’s focus on cost-cutting, content spending is still set to rise annually. Multiple forecasts predict a 2% increase in global content spending this year, growing to $247 billion from $243 billion in 2022 and 2023. This growth, driven by inflation and new post-strike labor costs, underscores the inevitability of rising production expenses, even as average per-series budgets decline.
