Brian Welk reports on IndieWire that Study Reveals Untapped Market of 40 Million People Who Will Pay for Indie Films on Streaming.
He sets the context with:
“After a decade of massive growth, the indie film industry hit its peak in 2017 with just over 200 independent films in theatrical release. That’s also when streaming began to make itself known in a very big way, and the number of indie films in theaters began to plummet.
Netflix and the like spent a few years gobbling up indie movies out of festivals, but that’s dramatically slowed since 2021. Viewership for indies on streaming dipped from 30M in 2020 to just 18M by 2022. Indie films — and the audience for them — are being left behind.“
Former Sundance Institute CEO Keri Putnam led the “US Independent Film Audience & Landscape Study” a 118-page report available at indiefilmlandscape.org and believes there’s a massive audience waiting for indie movies because the biggest challenge facing independent films is finding them.
Her key recommendations for the indie film sector are:
- Combat market fragmentation with a new, consolidated streaming destination
- Invest in Theatrical Exhibition: Build data and marketing capacity at Festivals and Independent Cinemas
- Invest in 21st Century Streaming Public Media and Include Scripted Films on PBS
- Leverage Free, Mass Market Platforms: Build a field-wide vertical on a mass-market free streaming platform
- Expand and Engage Audiences of Color
- Thoughtfully enlist Brands and Philanthropy to Fund Production and Marketing
- Innovate on Sector-Wide Marketing
- Deepen and Enrich Engagement with Younger Audiences and Fan Communities
- Conduct More Research and Share Data Across the Field
- Build a Trade Organization to Facilitate Field-Wide Research, Innovation, Public Policy Advocacy
Read the full report.
My take: an indie film marketplace and discoverability. Yes, the two things every indie filmmaker wishes for. I know I’ve been searching for the last twenty years however it’s almost impossible to accomplish in this digital age, which is maddening because digitization was supposed to level the playing field — but what happened was that everyone made their own field. “Build it and they will come” is almost never true now.