Streaming once promised freedom: more choice, bolder storytelling and better television beyond the limits of old broadcast models. Today, the market feels more fragmented. Viewers are juggling multiple subscriptions while frustration over price and value keeps rising. Deloitte reports that the average subscribing household still pays for four SVOD services, but at a higher monthly cost than a year earlier; 41 per cent of consumers surveyed now say the content is not worth the price, and 47 per cent feel they pay too much overall. In Europe, the same fatigue is visible: in a recent Deloitte survey in the Netherlands, 19 per cent said they simply had too many subscriptions.

At the same time, the era of limitless “Peak TV” is over. FX Research counted 516 original scripted series in the US in 2023, down from 600 in 2022. The pullback has continued: Ampere Analysis reported that the major global streamers cut scripted TV commissions by 24 per cent year on year in the first half of 2025. In other words, there may be many platforms, but that does not automatically mean more creative risk. The business is becoming more cautious. Disney and Amazon show why. Disney reported US$1.3 billion in direct-to-consumer operating income for fiscal 2025 and said it expects to invest about US$24 billion in content in fiscal 2026, with spending tied to sports rights, new and existing franchises, and television content. Amazon, meanwhile, justified limited advertising on Prime Video as a way to keep investing in content over the long term. Streaming is increasingly being run like a tightly managed media business, not a pure growth story.

Does that mean quality is falling? Not automatically. Premium series are not disappearing. But the creative middle is under pressure. When platforms focus more heavily on profitability, advertising and dependable scale, known IP, crime, comedy, reality, documentary formats and other cost-efficient genres gain ground. One recent industry analysis, citing Ampere, described exactly this shift: more emphasis on cost-effective mainstream content and live sport, and less room for expensive, riskier prestige drama. The weakness of the system, then, is not simply “cheap series”, but narrowing editorial risk. So the real problem is not volume alone. It is the logic behind it. The more platforms compete for attention, subscriptions and ad revenue, the stronger the incentive to make content that works quickly, travels well and can be marketed efficiently by algorithm. That can still produce quality — but often a more predictable kind. “Peak TV” is slowly turning into “Efficiency TV”.