The Rise of Pandemic Watch Parties
Have you been watching Friends with friends?
By Lewis Empson
Streaming services have played an integral part during the Covid-19 pandemic, not only in keeping the encroaching boredom at bay for the masses, but also by maintaining large portions of the entertainment industry thanks to streaming and premium video on demand (PVOD) releases of films that could otherwise not be shown in cinemas.
Workarounds have been found to sustain the film industry as a whole. New releases have been trickling onto the likes of Disney+, iTunes and Google Play Movies with an inflated price tag of around £15-£20 to align with the average price of a family cinema ticket, meaning audiences can enjoy the new releases from the comfort (and safety) of their living rooms and movie studios don’t sacrifice precious revenue.
Streaming services as a whole have seen a frankly ludicrous boom in viewership thanks to a combination of factors including new options such as Disney+, as well as high quality programming and films such as The Queen's Gambit, and The Mandalorian and Soul on Netflix and Disney+, respectively.
These abundant options combined with lengthy lockdowns resulted in UK streaming service viewership exceeding 32 million subscribers, with 40% of Britons time spent watching TV in the height of the UK’s first major lockdown according to The Guardian.
Disney+ is the newest comer to the scene, launching in March of 2020 in the UK. It couldn’t have come at a better time as families were stuck indoors in early stages of the first lockdown. It’s high quality programming, popularity and massive financial investment from the “Mouse House” has allowed this newcomer to keep industry heavyweights such as Netflix on their toes, especially with its recent content expansion in the UK with Disney+ STAR.
According to The Guardian’s Mark Sweney, by Decemeber 2020, just the nine months since its launch in the UK, Disney+ had “passed Sky’s Now TV to become the third most popular streaming service in the UK.”
Watch Parties
One aspect that was missing from the viewer experience was the common social pastime of cinema trips and binge watching box sets with friends and family.
This has duly been accounted for through ‘watch party’ options, opening up opportunities for watching alongside friends and family over the internet.
Amazon integrated this feature into its Prime Video streaming service November 2020 allowing for up to 100 friends to watch and react in real time, emulating the social nature with ease and convenience just without the obvious risk.
All of this can be achieved with the ease of an integrated share function although it's worth mentioning that only Prime Video subscribers can join and that this feature is exclusive to web browsers on laptops or desktops.
What’s interesting is that streaming service poster boy, Netflix, does not offer this feature natively and, instead, third party developers have stepped up to address this. Teleparty, formerly Netflix Party, offers the watch party experience using its third party service, expanding out to the likes of HBO and Hulu in the US thanks to its success found with Netflix users.
Considering Netflix’s massive subscriber base of 204 million users, it’s surprising it doesn’t feature this useful tool. With Teleparty’s success and further expansion into this market, it brings to question why Netflix isn’t exploring this opportunity; perhaps they are content with simply being the most popular streaming service already?
In comparison, Disney+ (which does offer a native watch party feature) has just under half of this figure with 100 million users worldwide, so its curious to see that Netflix is not jumping on this phenomenon especially considering how it ruled early ‘Lockdown 1.0’ with the likes of Tiger King and maintained commercial and critical success throughout the Covid-19 pandemic with shows such as Bridgerton and films such as The Trial of the Chicago 7.
It almost seems like Netflix is missing a beat by not combining its huge customer base and range of content with a watch party service. Amazon Prime Video, with its global viewership of 150 million users, seems to be taking the initiative by uniting its immense audience with its integrated watch party function, perhaps to win over more viewers to their service in an attempt to dethrone the king of streaming services.
Is it perhaps that the fresher faces on the scene are more willing to expand and trial these new options? It’s tempting to think Netflix is getting complacent but they clearly know what they’re doing in the world of streaming services.
Online watch party services have helped to ensure that the social nature of entertainment has endured the isolating nature of the coronavirus lockdowns in innovative ways.
Although it might not be the same experience as sitting next to friends and family and enjoying your favourite films and box sets, it has emulated to the best extent the experience for audiences. Hopefully this can tide over moviegoers until cinemas can be opened for audiences and homes can be open to friends and family.
Until then, streaming services will remain more popular than ever, and it will be interesting to see if this surge in users is sustained in a post-Covid world.