A group of 15 specialty streamers – including Tubi, Crunchyroll, Roku, a handful of AMC Networks-owned services and others – have united to form Beyond Mainstream: A Global Streaming Alliance. The aim is to give a collective voice to specialty streamers in global policy and regulatory debates as governments and regulators around the world implement or consider various requirements for streaming services that operate in their countries.
The coalition of specialty streamers, which together have audiences in nearly every country, appear to be concerned about being lumped in and unfairly constrained by potential obligations that policymakers might primarily intend for large general entertainment streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video and others.
By coming together, they hope to ensure that specialized and regional platforms aren’t overlooked – and to emphasize the unique cultural value of said services - as policymakers shape the future of streaming.
The initial members of the coalition are diverse and largely focused on niche or specialty content, but not necessarily all small players in terms of users or subscribers. Tubi, for example, touts more than 100 million monthly active users, while Crunchyroll has over 17 million paid subscribers.
Other streamers in the alliance include AMC Networks’ Acorn TV, ALLBLK, HIDIVE, Shudder and Sundance Now, as well as NDM+, OUTtv, Pure Flix, Rakuten Viki, The Roku Channel, SonyLiv, Sony One and Zee5.
“Our targeted portfolio attracts passionate and loyal fans who come to us for community, curation and the content they love,” said Dawn Botti, EVP Legal and Business Affairs for AMC Networks, in a statement. “By joining the Beyond Mainstream coalition, we're uniting with other specialized services to ensure viewers can easily access a range of content offerings and to advocate for alternatives to one-size-fits all policies.”
In terms of one-size-fits all policies, the streamers – which have respective services that are more focused in nature, such as the anime genre, horror, or regional-language films – want to avoid frameworks that might apply the same obligations on them as general entertainment streaming services, which may have different scale, missions, business models and audiences.
For example, if a niche service that mainly offers licensed international content or genre-based programming has to abide by the same local content investment requirements as a global platform that has a large original productions budget. Or a regional streamer with a focus on local-language audiences being impacted by rules on content library thresholds that were designed with general entertainment players in mind.
As streaming giants like Disney, Netflix and Prime Video extend reach globally, governments and regulators have made various pushes or proposals regarding requirements on streamers– be it around content quotas, discoverability rules, investment obligations or platform regulation at large.
France, for example, was one of the first countries to require global streamers operating in the country to invest at least 20% of their annual local turnover in local French film and TV production following the introduction of the European Union’s 2018 Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) – a move that a 2024 study showed resulted in major streamers injecting around $1.02 billion into the sector in France between 2021 and 2023.
Other countries have considered levies on streamers or requirements that they invest a certain proportion of revenue back into local content, although not all have gone through. The UK government in July formally rejected a streaming levy proposal.
Earlier this year Norway’s parliament adopted legislation in accordance with the EU AVMSD that require on-demand services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and others that operate in the country to invest directly in the creation of Norwegian works like films and TV series – although there do appear to be exceptions for smaller streaming services or providers that don’t offer feature films, documentaries, drama series and documentary series.
And some are considering legislation that takes into account the number of subscribers a service has in the given country. This week the Australian government confirmed it would introduce legislation that would require any streaming service with more than 1 million Australian subscribers to produce Australian drama, children’s, documentary, arts or educational programs. Platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and others would have to commit certain levels of their local expenditures or a specified proportion of their revenue to Australian content.
“This coalition is especially timely as new systems for digital democracy and global governance are on the horizon,” said Nijel de Mesa, President and CEO of NDM+, in a statement. “Beyond Mainstream will foster mutual cooperation so members can act together to secure a vibrant and sustainable future for streaming in the global entertainment landscape."
Specialty streaming services in the new Beyond Mainstream alliance appear to see these mounting policy pressures as potentially threatening their ability to operate, compete and grow – with the mind that their unique operations, needs and value aren’t necessarily being considered by lawmakers and that rules designed without specialty services in mind could have a chilling effect on the types of services and content available to consumers.
“By joining together as the Beyond Mainstream coalition, independent and specialized streaming services can champion fair access and visibility for diverse programming,” said Brad Danks, CEO of OUTtv Media Global, in a statement. “Our shared goal is to build an equitable media environment that reflects the full range of audiences and perspectives — something we can only achieve by working together."