Why Disney Is Seen as the “Big Winner in the Licensing Renaissance”
Disney is “set to be the big winner in the licensing renaissance” as Hollywood giants look to make revenue from their content beyond using it on their own streaming services, according to a new study.
“Disney trumps all the other major studios with its ownership of powerful licensable content, owning more than double that of its rivals,” research firm Ampere Analysis explained in a report published Monday. “After four years of major studios employing a walled-garden approach to the distribution of their TV content on streaming, licensing is steadily making a comeback.”
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It added: “Studios were understandably reluctant to give up exclusivity for major franchises as they built their streaming services. But Warner Bros. Discovery’s 2023 deals to license recently released DC-adapted content to Amazon, Netflix and Tubi demonstrate that even strategies around exclusivity for core IP are now changing.”
Ampere’s analysis found that the number of TV seasons cross-licensed between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max and Discovery+ more than tripled in 2023, while Amazon’s overlap with studios’ streamers also grew “significantly.” The firm also noted “recent major deals” involving the likes of NBCUniversal and Disney.
Ampere formulated a “licensing power ranking” and analyzed Hollywood conglomerates’ content catalogs “to identify the number of titles currently held back that meet these criteria.”
The company identified titles with “licensing power,” which fulfill the following criteria: “they have completed their first run, have at least three seasons, are scripted, of U.S.-origin, and still maintain consumer engagement measured with Ampere’s Popularity Score,” a metric that reflects the online engagement for each title every month.
Disney holds the most titles with licensing power, owning 148 that were still exclusive to its own streaming services as of December 2023, Ampere concluded, describing this as “a potential licensing cache more than double the size of any other major Hollywood studio.” Among these shows are the likes of Sons of Anarchy and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the firm said.
Paramount Global has 72 titles with licensing power in the back pocket, including Hawaii Five-0 and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Warner Bros. Discovery has 54, including The Sopranos and The Wire, and NBCUniversal has 47, including The Office and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, according to the Ampere analysis.
The research firm also looked at the available programming in terms of genre. Across major studios’ titles with licensing power, “comedy is the most common genre, accounting for 25 percent,” it explained. “This is driven by U.S. audiences’ continued interest in a host of locally produced long-running sitcoms. Many of these ended their run long ago (including The Office, The Golden Girls and Seinfeld) but some are more recent hits (such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine).”
Ampere highlighted though that “not all identified titles with licensing power will necessarily be cross-licensed.” For example, six of the 20 most popular titles in Paramount Global’s vault are part of the Star Trek franchise.
That said, the success of Suits on Netflix has been widely noted in Hollywood and on Wall Street. “Several recent examples of titles that have seen a huge boost in popularity following transmission in a second window suggest that studios should seek licensing partners (like NBCUniversal’s Suits on Netflix) with the largest userbase and the smallest audience overlap,” Ampere wrote.
“We expect more licensing deals for high-profile titles to be struck in 2024 between major VOD providers,” said Rahul Patel, research manager at Ampere. “Studios’ strategies will need to carefully balance exclusivity and non-exclusivity to ensure their streaming offerings are distinct and compelling while also maximizing the value of their content as it moves to a second window. Licensing can expand the audience for existing assets, extend shelf life and at the more successful end of the scale, inspire franchise expansion. This was the case with NBCUniversal when it commissioned a Suits spinoff following its success on Netflix.”
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