The Return of the TV Channel

Twenty-five years ago, the arrival of TiVo marked the beginning of the decline of the TV channel. First, we got recording and ad-skipping. In response, cable companies started selling boxes of their own and offering more shows on demand. In 2007, Netflix set the template for what would eventually become the primary way people watch things on their TVs: a big huge pile of shows and movies, searchable and arranged into a bunch of lists. Channel-flipping was replaced with scrolling and tapping, an abundance of much finer choices now fighting individually for viewers’ attention.

Now, after “peak streaming” and somewhere in the “streaming trough,” viewers are getting tired. Choosing from thousands of options on a dozen streaming services, it turns out, is “overwhelming,” and a recipe for “choice fatigue.” Subscription growth is slowing. Churn is up. Now Disney, the second- or third-largest streaming service, depending on how you count, has decided there’s something missing from the TV experience: channels. Sorry, “Streams,” or a collection of “collection of lean-back viewing experiences”:

A collection of seasonally-themed content from across the Disney+ catalog begins with Hallowstream for Halloween. Hits & Heroes, delivers a compilation of action-packed stories from marquee brands and franchises, including Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars. Throwbacks, is a destination for always-on nostalgic pop culture content. Real Life, offers a lineup of traditional documentaries, biopics, and true stories. These four Streams will initially roll out to Premium subscribers at launch.

Broadcast and cable channels were technological necessities — there was no other way to deliver programming but on different channels and in a linear format. Programming, as in the practice and the job of figuring out what goes on and when has been replaced on streaming services by recommendations that are often automated and personalized. This is, in the cold terms of getting people to spend more time watching stuff, probably a more effective model for TV distribution. But there’s no reason that streamers can’t do things the old way, too, and Disney isn’t the first to try, although its product description of what it’s doing is probably the funniest and closest to a Jeopardy! answer for “What are channels?”: “Carefully curated, continuous programming Streams based on seasonality or interest that subscribers can enjoy without having to select title by title.”

The closest recent precursor to Streams, albeit a much smaller one, would be Criterion’s 24/7, which adds a programmed movie channel to the streaming service; NBC’s Peacock, too, has a long list of channels arranged around themes (“Black-Led Drama”), genres (“Laugh Here”), and shows (“Law & Order”). Much more popular are so-called FAST services (free, ad-supported television), including Tubi, Freevee, and Roku’s channels, which basically recreate a version of cable TV within their respective apps, mixing linear and on-demand programming with, unlike Disney’s Streams, at least for now, a whole bunch of un-skippable ads, which, well, welcome back to 1999.

If the beginning of the streaming era was defined by shows created for linear broadcast on TV channels repurposed as bingeable streaming fodder, maybe the next era will be about shows created for streaming services repurposed as linear schedule-fillers. Maybe it’s what the people want! Or maybe it’s a way to help soften news of another streaming trend Disney is embracing: Get ready for another price hike.