Streaming changed movie culture by making audiences expect movies and television to be flexible, immediate, and available across devices. In the past, viewers had to plan around theater releases, cable schedules, DVD rentals, or weekly television episodes. Now, audiences expect to watch what they want from home, often without waiting. The Motion Picture Institute explains that streaming services have changed film distribution, audience behavior, and theater attendance, which shows that streaming is not just a new delivery tool. It has changed the way society understands entertainment itself (Fore, 2023).
The COVID-19 pandemic made this cultural shift even stronger because people became more comfortable watching major releases and full series at home. Gerkins and Cronin-Gilmore (2022) found that 96% of surveyed Millennials subscribed to at least one streaming service and that 78% increased their streaming during the pandemic. Their findings also showed that viewers placed more value on variety, comfort television, commercial-free viewing, personalization, and new content. This matters because streaming has changed social culture. People now binge-watch, rewatch comfort shows, and talk about media at different times instead of experiencing the same release together. The benefit is convenience, but the limitation is that theaters and shared viewing experiences become less central to culture.
Links/Media:
Fore, K. (2023). The impact of streaming services on the movie industry. Motion Picture Institute. https://motionpicture.edu/socialcinema/2023/06/19/the-impact-of-streaming-services-on-the-movie-industry/
Frey, T. (2021). How movies changed after COVID. Futurist Speaker. https://futuristspeaker.com/futurist-thomas-frey-insights/how-movies-changed-after-covid/
