The end of the shared TV experience? Why streaming's power grab should worry viewers

The Warner Bros Discovery takeover has been presented to us all as a numbers game, the ever-climbing bids like a Jenga tower made of gold bullion. For those keeping score, it appears as though Paramount has reached the battlements of that tower ahead of rivals Netflix, its triumph having made for a blockbuster business epic with a budget in the billions – $111 billion, to be precise.

But this is far from a mere financial story, for the prize pot for the victors is the back catalogue of such touchstones as the sitcom Friends and the Game of Thrones franchise. And the day now appears to be fast approaching when Paramount (already the rights owners of Yellowstone and Star Trek) also gets its clutches on the likes of Joey Tribbiani and Jaime Lannister.

Should the regulators give their approval, this is likely to be a major turning point in the landscape of TV, with the potentially winning bid making Paramount one of the most exclusive gated media communities on the planet.

TV shows once available to everybody are already now siloed away on streaming services. In the US, plans are already afoot to combine them into one platform, though HBO Max is set to be rolled out here in the UK as a separate entity later this month.

Yes, that’s right, it’s yet another members-only platform for which punters must shell out. There really ought to be a term for this. Subscription creep? Streaming fatigue? On-demand overload? But how did we reach this point where television – once the great democratising force of the 20th century – became such a walled-off domain in the 21st?

Those who came of age in the terrestrial-only era can recall a time when TV in Britain at least had a truly cohesive quality. Unlike newspapers (which divided their readers along political lines) or cinema and theatre (where admission was gained only with a ticket), television belonged to everyone. It was common cultural ground – a landscape where ITV could air both Bullseye and The South Bank Show, while the BBC showed ‘Allo ‘Allo! and Arena.

For evidence of a social leveller, look to those TV schedules. Channels may have been few, but their reach was nationwide. But the era of entry without exclusion was not to last. An early sign of a rope barrier being put in place came with the launch in 1989 of satellite broadcaster Sky.

For the first time, viewers discovered a new concept: the paywall. And neighbourhoods were suddenly split between those who had access to The Simpsons and live Premiership football and those who went without.

It was sold to us as greater choice, but what Sky really represented was the start of television being a paid-for commodity. Circle back to Friends and you can see that tiering of TV in action.

The US sitcom debuted in the UK on the free-to-air Channel 4 in 1994. Sky, recognising its popularity, then poached it and acquired first-run episodes in 1996, in much the same way as it later did with such established terrestrial hits as ER, Lost and 24.

Spool forward to 2026 and Friends is again being used as an enticement to subscribe. After being removed from Netflix in the UK in December 2025, it’s now getting promoted as a key part of HBO Max’s line-up.

So, a series that was once a fixture in TV’s public square is now being fought over in the equivalent of private members’ lounges. Looking at the fate of Friends, it’s difficult not to conclude that television hasn’t so much evolved as been fenced off.

But it’s something we tend not to notice because there’s now so darn much of it. The paid-for model introduced by Sky in the late 1980s is now the norm for services provided not via satellites but through wi-fi.

At times, it can feel as though there are more platforms than there are eyeballs to watch them. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+ – as the options increase, our bank balances deplete, as the medium that once needed little more than a licence and an aerial now requires multiple monthly direct debits.

But this is a mirage of plenty. In truth, few can afford everything that’s on the market, so we end up picking a selection that suits our budget. Watching TV has become an exercise in choosing a side, stumping up for the fee, and missing out on the rest.

Yet there’s a paradox at the heart of this age of apparent proliferation. For while we have more platforms to choose from than ever, there are now fewer people in charge. The audience may be fragmenting, but ownership is clustering. And if we can’t afford to watch everything, it’s worth querying who’s in control of what’s on offer.

The situation with Warner Bros Discovery is a reminder that power is in danger of being hoarded. And the suspicion is that when media ownership consolidates, risk-taking goes out the window, especially in the US where companies are loathe to take on a president easily bruised by criticism.

Eyebrows have already been raised at the friendly relationship between Paramount boss David Ellison and the White House. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, donated $1m to the president’s inauguration fund in 2025, with Prime Video releasing a documentary the following year focused on the first lady.

The irony for UK viewers is that, as we pay more for these American-owned platforms, the programmes we’re watching are being made with an eye not on Ofcom but the man in the Oval Office.

Television, an art form that once reflected our broad social palette, now finds its boardrooms preoccupied with US politics. And the danger is that with a narrower appetite for risk, viewers will be exposed to a shrinking range of viewpoints. Might we end up paying a premium price for streaming services afraid to offend?

There have, admittedly, been recent occasions when dramas made for streaming platforms have bitten at our social conscience. Think of the piercing anguish of Adolescence (Netflix) or the polemical streak in Suspect: the Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes (Disney+).

But when political leaders go on the attack or frame creatives as ideological enemies, global brands begin to fret about share price. In the broadcast era of old, networks could be brave and contain any loss – now, controversies have the potential to reverberate across the markets.

In hindsight, the launch of Sky in 1989 feels like the thin end of a wedge whose thick end includes the abundance of streaming and the gradual dissolving of television as a shared experience.

Watercooler moments are slowing to a trickle and national viewing events have become fewer in number. Programmes that once worked on us as a collective have now become niche. TV has gone from the living room to the laptop, while the licence fee now exists alongside the payment plan.

But perhaps the biggest cost of all this will not appear on bank statements but in the loss of communal memory. The Line of Duty episode we all debated. The Ross and Rachel kiss in Friends that drew a collective gasp of breath.

As ownership contracts, caution increases and prices rise, what was once a national conversation becomes monetised and hyper-targeted. A culture that was once bound together is now being packaged up and sold back to us in pieces.

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