Ampere: Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, and Netflix will spend $23B+ in 2023 on original content, up 10% YoY and more than twice the spending of 2019
Crop of expensive fantasy adaptations from Amazon and HBO Max served up at subsidised prices
Context & Ripple Effects
Ampere's 2022 forecast captured the originals arms race at full throttle: five platforms more than doubling their combined original-content budgets versus 2019, with Amazon and HBO Max leading with expensive fantasy adaptations sold at subsidised prices. The follow-on data confirmed the trajectory rather than correcting it — Amazon's own filings show content spend climbing through the strike year, and global streamers' European originals outlays jumped 70% in 2022 alone (€4.9B across Europe).
What came after reframes this story: the spending war has since matured into a scale contest, with Ampere now projecting total streaming content spend crossing $100B in 2026 (a 6% growth year) and Netflix responding to the cost of scale not just with budgets but with a proposed Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition.
First-order effects
- Subscribers to Amazon Prime and HBO Max receive flagship fantasy adaptations priced below their production cost, forcing Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+ to defend their catalogs with comparable original budgets in the same 2023 cycle.
- Production studios and talent attached to these franchises see demand — and pricing power — rise immediately, as the five platforms bid against each other for a limited pool of premium IP and showrunners.
Second-order effects
- The subsidy economics push platforms toward new revenue levers: Amazon's ~$7B of Prime-included content spend (within its $16.6B total in 2022) pressures it to monetise beyond retail attachment, while rivals lean on ad tiers and price increases to close the gap between content cost and subscription revenue.
- Regional production markets become strategic battlegrounds — the 70% surge in European originals spend shows streamers localising to satisfy quotas and win subscribers market-by-market, pulling national studios and crews into global platform supply chains.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the five-way spending race ends in consolidation around fewer, larger platforms — the logic behind Netflix's proposed Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition — because only scaled players can sustain nine-figure-per-series budgets indefinitely.
- Content budgets shift from a growth weapon to a discipline problem: once subscriber growth slows, the same spend that built these platforms becomes the cost base that forces bundling, licensing reversals, and M&A across the industry.
The trend: Streaming's original-content arms race is transitioning from budget escalation to structural consolidation, as the platforms that spent most aggressively seek scale through acquisitions and new revenue models.