“Stacking” Is Going To Change How You Stream Your Favorite TV Shows For The Better

The business side of TV has always lagged behind consumer expectations, and right now viewers expect a lot.

Since the 1980s, we’ve gone from:
THREE networks broadcasting shows ONCE at a SPECIFIED time on your TV

to:
HUNDREDS OF networks broadcasting THOUSANDS of shows ALL the time on LOTS OF DEVICES.

At every expansion along the way — from recording shows on VHS tapes, to buying them on DVD, to watching them on Netflix — the trend has been toward earlier access to a broader range of content with the broadcaster trying to keep up with how consumers are using technology.

The latest viewing convenience is what the industry calls “stacking” — making full seasons of shows available as the season is going on. Let’s say you’ve heard good things about ABC’s American Crime, but you haven’t started watching the series yet. With stacking, you would have been able to catch up on the earlier episodes on demand, on Hulu or on the Watch ABC streaming app at any time while the series was airing or even now after few weeks after the finale. Without stacking — as was and is the case with American Crime — you typically get only the five most recent episodes.

“The reason you can’t catch up on American Crime is that the networks want to hold over you that if you miss an episode on broadcast, you might never get a chance to see it or not for a long time,” writer Jason Snell said on a recent episode of the TV Talk Machine podcast. “That seems like a bad reason.”

Decider’s own Joe Reid had a similar assessment earlier this week: “American Crime‘s low ratings certainly weren’t helped by witholding episodes from Hulu. Instead, it was just one more obstacle for viewers looking to catch up to the series.”

Until recently, many shows haven’t been stacked because that makes the series less valuable to sell on Blu-ray and to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Only the most recent episodes of American Crime are available on demand and on ABC’s website. If you aren’t watching it yet, well too bad. You can watch it next year on Netflix or Hulu or whoever buys the off-network rights. Or you can skip it forever because there’s always something else to watch.

Having access to the five most recent episodes is plenty for catching up on a show after a vacation or if you got behind while binging Daredevil on Netflix, but it restricts the potential audience for the show to the people who are already watching it. In a TV environment where the streaming networks have made it easy to start watching any show anytime you want, the broadcast and cable networks are beginning to do the same. Warner Bros. recently struck a deal to stack all of the shows it produces for ABC for the next two years and is almost certainly looking to make similar deals with the other major networks.

“This is a real win for network television viewers,” Jana Winograde, EVP of business operations for ABC Entertainment said in the announcement. “Giving our audience even more opportunities to catch up on their favorite shows in their entirety, on demand, only enhances their loyalty to and engagement with ABC and our series.”

Warner Bros., which currently produces family comedy The Middle and the Bachelor and Bachelorette reality franchises for ABC, was at a competitive disadvantage in an environment where networks are increasingly shifting toward producing their own content. WB is likely looking to make similar deals with other broadcast, cable and streaming networks. When The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend won a surprise Golden Globe a few months ago, only the recent episodes of the Warner-produced series were available to watch on demand and on Hulu. Warner scrambled to update its deals to make more episodes available and capitalize on the attention. (Their stacking rights have since reverted, though; now only the five most recent episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are available to stream on Hulu and CWTV.com.)

The stacking deal may also be an effort by ABC to streamline its licensing before launching a subscription-based streaming app similar to CBS All Access. The Watch ABC streaming app has recently started to more closely resemble the free version of CBS All Access — more ad-supported episodes available without a pay-TV login, including a full-season stack of Quantico — and it’s not hard to imagine a premium version of Watch ABC with its own original programming.

NBCUniversal launched its Seeso comedy streaming network earlier this year and has said it is developing as many as six additional streaming services. Turner Broadcasting is planning to launch at least two streaming services before the end of the year. And Disney, which owns ABC, launched its DisneyLife streaming service last year in the U.K.

The ABC-Warner deal is likely a sign that stacking will become the norm on every platform.

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider. He is also a contributing writer for Signature and The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.