Apple TV+ Has the Heaviest Concentration of New Shows, but Nostalgia Fuels Peacock and Paramount+ | Charts

Cole Strain
·3 min read
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One of the pivotal questions in the streaming industry is how much platforms depend on new releases to attract and retain audiences. That question is particularly relevant after the 2023 strike, which stunted the release of new scripted content for several months, and platforms had to lean on legacy TV shows and unscripted content to keep audiences’ engagement.

Using Parrot Analytics’ Content Panorama, we can break down each platform’s TV catalog by how long ago a show released new episodes and provide insights on how much each platform relies on new content, whether in the form of new seasons or new shows released. Most of the main SVOD platforms have catalogs composed of shows that released an episode one to five years ago. This share is higher for Apple TV+ and Netflix, making up more than half of each platform’s TV catalog. By contrast, Peacock and Paramount+ have lower shares of these titles, with less than a third of shows available.

The two platforms have the highest share of shows that haven’t released a new episode in 10 years — more than one-quarter of the catalog — followed closely by Disney+ (23.1%). Nostalgia plays a crucial role in these platforms and the presence of beloved old linear shows in their catalog helps boost retention. For instance, Peacock has older sitcoms and comedies such as “House,” “That ‘70s  Show” and  “Scrubs,” which still have an engaged fan base. Disney+ has “Home  Improvement” and old cartoons like “Duck Tales (1987)” and 1990’s “The Gummi Bears.”

New content, which garners most of the media’s attention, varies considerably between platforms. One-fifth (20%) of the shows on the Apple TV+ catalog premiered or released a new season in the last six months, and another 21.3% of these were in the period between six and 12 months ago. For Netflix, the platform with the lowest share of new TV content, these shares are 10.3% and 9.1%.

Content Panorama also provides insight into these SVOD movie catalogs. Comparing the two largest movie catalogs, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, it becomes evident that both platforms rely largely on movies released more than five years ago. However, Prime Video has a much larger share, 74%, than Netflix (52%). On the other hand, almost a quarter of movies available on Netflix are released between one and three years, almost twice as much as Prime Video. This period, which comprises movies released between the first quarters of 2021 and 2023, was marked by a surge in the number of Netflix movies released straight to the platform.

These numbers only scratch the surface of the topic. Digging a little deeper, streaming platforms may be interested in answering the follow-up questions like:

  • How are other platforms combining new seasons and new series releases to engage audiences?

  • Are any of these categories over or underperforming in terms of audience demand for each catalog when compared to the number of titles?

  • How do other platforms’ movie catalogs, especially those with a big movie studio behind them, compare to Netflix and Amazon in terms of content age?

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