Will the Peak TV Bubble Finally Burst in 2019?

Star Wars and Star Trek, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, Ava DuVernay and Jordan Peele: theyll all be players in the great streaming wars of 2019, as Apple, Disney, and WarnerMedia enter an already-teeming TV marketplace.

For the first time ever, streamers are pumping out more original content than broadcast and cable networks. According to FX Networks number-crunching report released Thursday, 495 original scripted series aired in 2018; 160 of those ran on streaming services (not counting reality shows or kids programs), compared to broadcast networks (146) and basic cable (144).

Back in 2015, FX C.E.O. John Landgraf predicted that we had reached a point of “peak TV,” an original programming bubble that would soon burst. “Im the equivalent of someone whos raising his hand before the housing crisis and saying, Hey, weve got an impending housing crisis,” he told Vanity Fair.

Three years later, the bubble is still inflating. And 2019 will bring an onslaught of powerful new streaming options competing for American eyeballs—and wallets. A frenzied talent grab is underway, with streamers and studios jostling to lock down recognizable performers and high-end creators, the effects of which wont be evident on our screens until midway through 2019 into 2020.

Disney+ is titillating fans by spilling details about two forthcoming live-action Star Wars TV shows that will grace the service when it launches next year. Apple has spent the year stockpiling a staggering amount of Hollywood talent—Oprah! Jennifer Aniston! Steven Spielberg! J.J. Abrams!—as it builds a high-end streaming TV service from scratch. WarnerMedia is rushing to pull together a multi-tiered streamer centered around HBOs premium content. Even Walmart and Costco have reportedly expressed interest in entering the streaming arena.

A huge pile of money is up for grabs in this television-industry version of the Wild West (the Boston Consulting Group calls it a “$30 billion battlefield,” as people continue to ditch their cable subscriptions). No one knows how many streaming services the market can bear. Would you pay for three? Five? Fifteen? It is clear, however, that not everyone will survive this rodeo, so the pressure to get out in front with stellar original content and a hot back-catalog is huge. Here is a guide to some of the key players to watch in 2019.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu: The trio of streaming vets have carved out a central spot in the streaming realm by investing deeply in programming.

With more than 100 million global subscribers and a reported $8 billion original content budget, Netflix has managed to make itself a destination and grab a whole lot of awards. (It tied HBO for the most Emmy wins this year, challenging the prestige networks 17-year streak.) The streamer has been on a talent spree, locking down superstars like Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, and Barack and Michelle Obama with extravagant nine-figure deals. But Netflixs profit margins are low, and a large proportion of its audience watches licensed stuff—like Friends— that comes from other companies, which Netflix may lose when options like WarnerMedia charge onto the streaming scene. Plans range from $7.99–$13.99 per month.

Over at Amazon Prime, studio head Jennifer Salke took the helm promising “addictive, cant-miss, global television shows” this year, though weve yet to see her slate hit the screens. The biggest bet is a Lord of the Rings series, but Salke also has used her reported $4.5 billion content budget to snare deals with Peele and Gillian Flynn, as well as Nicole Kidman, Maya Rudolph, and Blake Lively. Access to the streaming site comes with membership in Amazon Prime, which costs $12.99 per month or $119 per year.

Hulu has been investing heavily in programming, reportedly leading to a big financial shortfall this year. But Hulu should get a serious boost next year when Disney will control 60 percent of the streamer after its Fox deal is done. Disney boss Robert Iger promised, “Well be able to supply Hulu with a lot of high-quality content,” suggesting that Hulu would be the home of Disneys adult-oriented fare, leaving the family-friendly stuff for the forthcoming Disney+. Hulu plans start at $7.99 per month; there is a $39.99 per month option for access to live TV in addition to Hulu content.

CBS All Access: When CBS launched its streaming service in 2014, some TV pundits were puzzled. Why would anyone pay for the kind of content thats available for free on broadcast television? CBS was playing the long game, launching a stable of streaming-only series like The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery that built on familiar brands. During an earnings call earlier this year, the network boasted that All Access and its sister streaming service for Showtime were on track to reach 8 million subscribers by 2019 (a year ahead of expectations), and would likely hit 16 million domestic subscribers by 2022. The fact that CBS All Access just canceled One Dollar, one of its few original offerings, isnt great news, but the streamer plans to continue adding three to four original series per season. It has a large broadcast library and live offerings to draw on, as well as other high-profile projects in the works, like a Picard-centric Star Trek series featuring Sir Patrick Stewart and Peeles reboot of The Twilight Zone. Plans cost $5.99 a month or $9.99 without ads.

Coming soon

Apple: Apples streaming service currently feels like a bit of a black hole for content: dozens of scripted TV projects are going in, but nothing has come back out. It seems like there is a shiny new Apple TV project announced every month, thanks to a $1 billion content budget. But there are rumors of creative fumbles behind the scenes, as well as pressure from the top to keep the fare squeaky-clean—which might not be so easy for show-runners accustomed to creating sophisticated prestige TV. Much else about the future there is cloudy. When will it launch? What will it cost users? How will it work? A recent report offered a plausible reply to the latter question, suggesting that the company planned to offer its original content free to owners of Apple devices, alongside paid subscriptions to other digital channels, as Amazon does.

Disney+: Disney doesnt do anything halfway, and their forthcoming family-friendly streaming service is already stocking up on expensive franchise content. The company has announced original series from the Star Wars universe—The Mandalorian, set in the era between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, and a Rogue One prequel starring Diego Luna.

Disney+ is also planning some Marvel spin-offs and is developing a series based on High School Musical. This is all, of course, on top of its back-catalog (The Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan, etc.). This will likely be the third in a trio of Disney-owned streaming sites, along with Hulu and the sports-oriented ESPN+, to lure in 1 million paid subscribers in its first five months.

Warner Media: AT&Ts streaming option intends to unveil a new direct-to-consumer platform in the fourth quarter of next year. The company has just announced that Kevin Reilly, currently president of TBS and TNT and chief creative officer for Turner Entertainment, will be in charge of content strategy for the project. AT&T has already caused several major convulsions in the streaming world—first by closing down the beloved FilmStruck site, provoking questions about whether niche streaming sites can survive the streaming wars; and, second, by agreeing to let Netflix keep licensing Warners Friends for another year, at a cost of $100 million. (The deal turned out to be non-exclusive, so WarnerMedia will be able to stream it, too.)

Not a lot of other details have been revealed yet beyond some basics: there will be three tiers of content at different price points, and the site will bundle shows from the vast Warner Brothers and Turner libraries, as well as the Criterion Collection. HBO will undoubtedly be one of the focal points of the streamer since the cable channel produces the kind of prestige original programming that can hold its own against the Netflixes and Amazons. Some industry insiders wonder why the company would dilute the power of the HBO brand with multiple tiers, and why it wouldnt retain exclusivity over properties like Friends to lock in subscribers, but its hard to make any substantial judgments until theres more information.

Walmart/Costco: If youd told me five years ago that discount brick-and-mortar superstores would be jumping into the TV business, I would have laughed. Yet here we are, at the anything-goes stage of the streaming bubble, and Walmart and Costco are both reportedly considering doing just that. Such a move could extend the retailers digital reach, along the lines of Amazon Prime, but theyll have a lot of competition to beat.

Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Joy PressJoy Press is a T.V. Correspondent for Vanity Fair. Her book, Stealing the Show: How Women Are Revolutionizing Television, was released in February.