By Adedapo Adesanya
Fresh data over Valentine’s period show that streaming services could yet tap a goldmine from major opportunities available in the romance films genre.
According to data provided to Business Post by Reel Good, a streaming aggregator website, romance movies have been overlooked, but available numbers show that there is a resurgence.
According to Reel Good, “Five romance movies that premiered in 2023 accounted for 28 per cent of the streaming share out of the top 100 romance movies available to stream in the United States—meaning that people are starved for this content.”
It was also revealed that among the top 100 available to stream in the US between February 10 and February 23, five brand-new romance films accounted for a 12 per cent share of streaming. These include Your Place or Mine (Netflix, 2023); Somebody I Used to Know (Prime Video, 2023), You People (Netflix, 2023), Empire of Light (HBO Max, 2022), and Shotgun Wedding (Prime Video, 2022).
Netflix’s Your Place or Mine, a film about two long-distance friends swapping homes for a week and learning so much about themselves, recorded 7.3 per cent of streaming and engagement share from the two-week period among the top 100 romance films on Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) and Advertising-Based Video on Demand (AVOD) in the US while it had a 3.0 per cent streaming and engagement shared among the top 100 movies on both SVOD and AVOD.
Prime Video’s Somebody I Used to Know, which features a workaholic questioning everything about herself when her ex decides to move on with his life, saw 6.4 per cent in the top 100 romance films and 2.7 per cent in the top 100 films ranking.
Another offering from Netflix, You People, which is about a new couple and their family members examining their values and what is expected of them, accounted for 6.2 per cent in the top 100 romance category while on the top 100 films streaming and engagement share, it was about 2.6 per cent.
HBO Max’s Empire of Light recorded a 4.7 per cent of streaming and engagement share from the two-week period among the top 100 romance films on SVOD and AVOD in the US, while it had a 1.9 per cent streaming and engagement share among the top 100 movies on both SVOD and AVOD. It follows the story of a cinema manager struggling with her mental health, which forms a relationship with a new employee on the south coast of England in the 1980s.
Shotgun Wedding from Prime Video came next with a 3.4 per cent and 1.4 per cent share, respectively. The film takes the audience into a hostage situation at a wedding, where the couples must do all they can to save their loved ones.
Early predictions show that these numbers may yet get better, but streaming services could be sleeping on a major opportunity if they are not investing in romance.
