Small streamers like Hallmark+ are outpacing major rivals as niche goes mainstream

’Tis the cheese’in… It’s a jolly time to be making movies about small-town bakers falling for fictional princes during a blizzard. Hallmark’s streaming service — and two dozen or so other niche streamers in the specialty category — have been thriving. Overall, genre-based streamers like Hallmark (romance), Shudder (horror), and Crunchyroll (anime) have outpaced the subscription growth of massive rivals. Subs to specialty streamers grew 27% last year and are up 20% this year, compared to 8% growth for industry leaders.

• Small wins: Sony’s Crunchyroll has nearly half the subscribers of Comcast’s Peacock. Comedy-streaming platform Dropout TV recently sold out Madison Square Garden with a live version of its popular “Dimension 20” show.

• Growth era: In the second quarter of this year, the # of people subscribing to at least one niche streamer passed 51M, more than double from two years ago. About 60% of specialty streamer subs were made through Amazon’s channels service.

Big + problems… A lot of large streaming platforms are struggling to turn consistent profits, while their parent companies get dragged down by flailing cable businesses that their streamers are helping to destroy. Pricey productions and hefty sports deals have also weighed on bottom lines. To make up for losses, streamers have been slashing original-content spending, raising their prices, and flooding their apps with ads. It’s led to more subscription pausing. Through September, over a third of premium streaming subscribers had rejoined a service they’d already canceled within the year.