Irish Examiner view: Bridgerton comes with price to pay

The purchasing of multiple entertainment platforms may have passed its high watermark

Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma and Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton in the second season of Bridgerton. 

So we are back off to Bridgerton this week to revisit the great streaming success of lockdown 2020. Some 82m people logged in during one month; 625m viewing hours were consumed in total. Break out the mannered acting, the Regency fashions, the corsets, the contrived plots, the colour-blind casting, the string quartet versions of Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, and Taylor Swift. The cod history. And, of course, the sex.

With so much quality and popular choice available on streaming, catch-up, and terrestrial, we have travelled a very long distance from Bruce Springsteen’s 1992 lament that more is less — “fifty-seven channels and nothing on”. The Boss’s remedy on that occasion was to take a .44 magnum and empty its six rounds into his TV set. For the Netflix generation, the answer has been to keep spending. But there are signs, in a world where the cost of living is on everyone’s mind, that purchasing multiple entertainment platforms may have passed its high watermark.

A Sky TV package for Ireland which includes sport, movies, broadband and additional services such as BT Sport (necessary for Champions League, Europa League and non-Sky Premiership matches) and Disney+ with a multi-room licence comes in at €118 per month, or just over €1,400 for the first 12 months. This discounted figure can rise after a year.

If you add to that Amazon Prime (more soccer, documentaries, films) that will be another €92 per annum, although this also includes other benefits. Apple TV could add €60. And there are others. Once the €160 licence (for supporting RTÉ) is added, the all-up cost of lean-back, screen-based, armchair entertainment heads towards €2,000 or €40 a week.

Unsustainable for consumers

In a period when energy and fuel are doubling, when food prices are on the rise, and inflation is unlikely to fall back soon, this seems unsustainable for consumers, even given the importance of bread and circuses in times of crisis.

The highly respected Enders Analysis research group found that consumers have 130,000 hours of content available from streaming and video-on-demand platforms compared to 30,000 hours in 2016. The cost to customers has grown by nearly a quarter over the same period.

Tom Harrington, head of television at Enders, said: “Cost is now quickly transitioning from what is for many an automatic and then forgotten regular discretionary spend, to a
noticeable chunk leaving their account.”

In Ireland, Netflix’s basic plan will rise by €1 to €8.99, the standard package will increase from €12.99 to €14.99 and the premium tier will rise from €17.99 to €20.99.

This is its second increase in two years and the popular standard plan has risen by 22% over that timescale. Disney+ increased its price by one third last year.

The drive to squeeze customers has had another ramification when Netflix began a long-proclaimed crackdown on an aspect of service that many regarded as a valuable perk: the ability to share passwords between families and friends, a practice which now looks as dated as the era when people could download music for nothing over peer-to-peer file sharing networks such as the original version of Napster.

That party is over. With family budgets feeling the squeeze, content providers will face a tough battle to prove they are an essential component of the monthly spend.

Whether the likes of Bridgerton will tip the balance will also tell us something about ourselves as a society, and our tastes.