JustWatch, the popular streaming search engine, reached out to theQR recently, asking if we were interested to know their stats on streaming performance of shows found via their platform through 2023. As a developing film critic, with little experience writing about the small screen, my initial response was to let this press release pass me by. However, I made the mistake of reading the stats, and now I have opinions.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful to see excellent productions such as HBO’s The Last of Us or Channel 4/Netflix’s Top Boy topping the streaming show lists in the UK and London specifically. Similarly, there’s no offence to be found in James Gunn’s last outing with the Guardians of the Galaxy reigning over the film lists.
However, we have to talk about what’s missing from these JustWatch lists. If there are enough subscribers to keep the wonderful Ted Lasso on the charts, then there are enough to push the outstanding Slow Horses into the top 10 surely? If Game of Thrones can survive an execrable final season to cling onto a top 10 finish years since it finished, then there’s no reason that AppleTV’s tremendous Foundation can’t rank higher. Then there’s the absence of any BBC iPlayer shows whatsoever, from Graham Norton to Storyville, from Gardeners World to the wonderful The Newsreader. However, it seems intuitively possible that license payers may skew towards finding iPlayer content on the iPlayer more strongly than other platforms. As opposed to say Prime Video, the interface for which appears to be designed by sadists.
“If there are enough subscribers to keep the wonderful Ted Lasso on the charts, then there are enough to push the outstanding Slow Horses into the top 10 surely?”
W.J. Quinn
Instead the UK public, according to JustWatch, would rather ride the relentless rollercoaster into dramatic despair which is Game of Thrones, than sit down with any of these spectacularly good shows. Shame on you public, shame on you. However, now we turn our minds to the film streaming stats, and matters get more troubling.
OK, so Guardians 3 is, probably, the last very good Marvel superhero film we’re likely to see for some considerable time: fine. Similarly, there’s no arguing with the titanic popularity of either the John Wick or Avatar franchises. However, after this, we have to start asking some questions.
Why, for goodness sake, are people flocking to watch Disney’s completely unnecessary, and utterly bland reworking of The Little Mermaid? Ditto the forgettable Elemental, and let’s not even talk about the cinematic mess known as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Shining bright in the UK list (though not London, you disappointments), is Dungeon & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the surprisingly excellent comedy-fantasy romp. Well done to everyone but London.
However, where is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, and just how poor has the horror film industry become (either in output or marketing) when the adequate but average M3GAN ranks so high?
However, the true weight of the JustWatch Top 10 lists will only hit you, dear reader, when you consider that many, maybe most of those consumers had, at their disposal, a library of some of the greatest cinematic and televisual art ever made. That’s right, the streamer subscribers of this nation would rather sit through the procedural (to be kind) Creed III than spend milliseconds summoning the sublime Paddington II to their screens.
Instead of basking in the nuanced glory of Blade Runner, the home cinephiles of London and the UK would rather sit through Ant-Man 3. Instead of Dirty Dancing or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, the Great British public is watching a one-joke movie about a murderous bear. (Examples are taken from shows available without charge to subscribers)
OK, so take the above with a pinch of salt, there is of course a recency bias built into the most-watched productions of any era. Further, I enjoy popcorn cinema as much as the next person, and not every moment spent in front of a screen, big or small, has to be spent with a masterpiece. Folks can JustWatch whatever they want to.
(That said, do yourselves a favour and grab a free month with Apple TV if you can, and smash your way through Slow Horses, the Foundation, Severance, The Beanie Bubble, and Tetris at the very least. For my money, Apple TV+ is currently putting out the best shows pound for pound – including documentaries.)
What else can we take from these JustWatch top 10 lists? Well, the non-dominance of Netflix for one. Out of interest, I loaded up our own household’s Netflix viewing history, and immediately made plans to cancel the subscription. To say our rate of Netflix consumption has collapsed in 2023 is an understatement. I’ll see out the very strong The Night Agent (not all that popular in the UK), and that’ll be that.
“The potential for an immense rediscovery of older films is even greater – the list of films better in every sense than the majority (not all) of those in the 2023 top 10 is vast.”
W.J.Quinn
On the other hand, Disney+ features well in the movie list in particular, but given the losses the company has endured ($387 million in its Q4), just how long they can sustain their output in the face of stalling subscriber numbers is in doubt. On the other hand, given the strength of their classic back-catalogue, the House of Mouse should really be doing more to re-market their library of all-time great movies.
Perhaps most bizarrely, to my mind, is the absence of Prime Video entries in the show streaming lists. Reacher (OK, Season 2 isn’t as strong as the first) should command a huge audience, as should The Rings of Power (it’s far better than Peter Jackson’s offensively awful The Hobbit TRILOGY). One likes to think Good Omens 2 could have squeaked into the top 10 list, but Amazon has to share that with the BBC, so the spoils are divided.
Now, at this point, we have to acknowledge that these top 10 lists are for viewers finding their content through the JustWatch platform. Just Watch is curating suggestions for its users, just like each platform, and who knows how it weights those recommendations? Perhaps, viewers who prefer to find their content via an all-in-one service such as JustWatch, simply skew towards a blockbuster & underwhelming (boo-ing me is allowed) mainstream offering niche.
Then again, who knows the numbers behind the rankings? Maybe the numbers separating the top 10 from the top 20, are marginal. After all, what’s a few thousand streams between shows raking in millions of views per year? (We presume millions, though streaming services are notoriously cagey about the real numbers.)
“What I do see is an opportunity. An opportunity to market the large libraries of outstanding shows made in past decades to Gen Z and beyond consumers.”
And maybe, just maybe, none of this matters and the good users of JustWatch can watch what they like, and tell me to take a long walk off a short (metaphorical) pier for judging their tastes. If little Angus wants to watch Elemental for the 100th time this Saturday afternoon, he should do so (not Ant-Man 3 though, it’s very bad, so leave it alone). In the end, watch what you want to watch, and enjoy what you enjoy. Life is too short to curate what you watch based on the tastes of others.
What I do see is an opportunity. An opportunity to market the large libraries of outstanding shows made in past decades to Gen Z and beyond consumers. From The West Wing to The Thorn Birds, from The Forsyte Saga to I, Claudius, from Band of Brothers to Smiley’s People, there are riches ready to be rediscovered. It’s not that they are ‘better’ than what’s being made now, but they are different. (Ok so all of the above are better than Loki – particularly season 2. All of them finish FAR stronger than Game of Thrones.) The potential for an immense rediscovery of older films is even greater – the list of films better in every sense than the majority (not all) of those in the 2023 top 10 is vast.
In an era when, he says with immense optimism, studios drunk on streaming revenues will have to start paying the content-makers better, and budgets for new shows and movies may well become far tighter, looking back makes sense. Paying residuals (hopefully) to the teams behind small and big screen masterpieces is far cheaper – whilst boosting pensions for the talents of past generations. How you sell this old gold to new audiences is quite another question. If I come up with the answer, I’ll be sure to sell it to the highest bidder.
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