How is recognizable IP shaping the SVOD market?

The Hollywood studios that dominate the global box office with movie series and franchises are now hoping to apply a similar formula to their new ventures in the streaming market. Using data from Ampere's Popularity score and Critical rating, Ampere Analysis’ Senior Analyst Rahul Patel analyzed what the most valuable movie franchises and series are and also what the advantages of IP ownership in the streaming market are.

During the “Content franchises: How is recognisable IP shaping the SVOD market?" webinar, Patel started by showing how exactly studios are aiming to bring the increasing power of movie franchises to the streaming market. Using a graph, the executive showed how from 2005 to 2019 the percentage of the 50 highest grossing films worldwide which belonged to a series or franchise increased, reaching a peak of 80% in 2017, before this trend was interrupted by the pandemic.

To record this information, Ampere Analysis uses its Popularity score system which, looking at data such as Wikipedia page views, the movie database, Google trends and the box office, among others, measures from 0 to 100 the popularity level of a franchise. By doing that, Ampere discovered that, for example, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the top franchise overall by total popularity in 2021.

Regarding companies, The Walt Disney Company and WarnerMedia owns the largest shares of the most popular franchises. In fact, from the top 20 franchises (by total popularity), Disney owns seven and WarnerMedia owns six. NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS and MGM follow them with two each, while Lionsgate has the remaining.

Owning the IP of popular franchise is becoming increasingly important for studios. According to Ampere, this enhances brand recognition, provides highly popular titles, bolster historic titles and gives the possibility to produce spin-offs or reboots of some series or movies. For instance, Patel shared how new installments created a “booster effect” in the “Jurassic Park” franchise’s previous releases.

The popularity of titles based on pre-existing ideas is not just an assumption, but it has been shown that consumers are more attracted to original content based on a well-known idea rather than new ones. Taking Netflix into account, for example, the average peak of Popularity Score of Netflix Original’s based on existing content is 46, while for the “true” original ideas is 30.

That is why SVOD platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, as well as the studio-backed platforms, are so keen to adapt recognizable material. For Disney+, 41% of first run TV-show commissions are adaptations, either be from a book, a comic, a movie or other sources. Amazon (36%), HBO Max (34%), Peacock (31%), Netflix (30%) and Paramount+ (25%) take a similar approach.