05/03/2025 - Amazon Prime Video and SkyShowtime's UK heads discussed the needs and duties of the contemporary streaming world

l-r: Hannah Blyth, Kai Finke and Jack Davison during the panel

“What do streamers want?” was the thorny question at the centre of a debate at MIP London, moderated by Jack Davison from 3Vision, who was in a discussion with Hannah Blyth, head of TV at Amazon Prime Video UK, and Kai Finke, chief content officer at SkyShowtime for the United Kingdom. 

Davison opened the session by giving an overview of the situation in the current market, trying to answer the question. "The simplest way to answer is to say they want subscribers and profitability, which is simplistic, but behind that is the significant change that happened around March 2022, when the lens was on profitability rather than on subscribers at all costs,” he explained, while introducing the audience to a presentation with statistics around the topic, provided by his company 3Vision.

"They want viewers, and reach, and that's in the context of the other important change in terms of how much advertising features in the business models of streamers, and how much the advertising streaming market has evolved over the last couple of years. The other thing they need to do is survive the new market landscape where everyone is operating under constrained finances," he added.

Streaming platforms are increasingly focusing on established intellectual property (IP) rather than original concepts, with 43% of scripted shows being literary adaptations in the 2023/2024 season, according to Davison. This shift reflects efforts to mitigate risk, with original content having dropped to 31% from 48% in 2018/2019. Another major trend is the return of third-party acquisitions, particularly by Netflix and Amazon, as part of a broader strategy balancing content creation and purchasing. Meanwhile, major studios have pushed their content toward their own streaming services, with 64% of their shows being distributed in-house in 2023. However, this trend has slightly declined in 2024, indicating a more mixed distribution approach.

Blyth talked through Amazon UK’s content strategy which evolves yearly, planning three years ahead across live sports, channels, home entertainment, and original productions. The focus is on maintaining a balanced slate with consistent content for core audiences, with sports playing a major role at the moment: "We know from our live sports team that we'll have big influxes of customers at specific points in time. There was a match recently, Manchester City playing Real Madrid, that brought in 4 million viewers. We look at these kinds of events from a content perspective and ask ourselves how we are making sure that we have content for those audiences and at the right time. We've really invested in our sports documentaries, to make sure that we have a consistent payload across the year”.

Finke highlighted the importance of creativity in navigating the market, particularly through strategic windowing to build audiences and mentioned how SkyShowtime focuses on investing in meaningful content, commissioning originals, and partnering on projects with a tailored, collaborative approach.

He also described some of the content they offer, starting from major franchises like Star Trek, Paw Patrol, and Taylor Sheridan’s shows. Finke noted that the offering has to be varied: “I think in order to programme a really successful service, you also need to provide local authenticity. So that's what we're looking for in some of our shows”. The company has shifted from first-run acquisitions to commissioning original productions, collaborating with top-tier writers, producers, and directors. The CCO named the original two-part documentary on goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, titled Schmeichel, as an example of this variety, which shows the necessity of balancing Hollywood content with locally relevant programming to create a successful service.