Embracing Global Sounds & Screens: The Rise of Foreign Music and Film/TV Content in the U.S.

Embracing Global Sounds & Screens: The Rise of Foreign Music and Film/TV Content in the U.S.

Tuesday Takeaway, from Luminate

Riding the wave of entertainment, one can't help but notice the shifting tides. Tonight marks the eighth episode of Shōgun, the epic mini-series set in Japan, whose popularity this spring has been a welcome surprise to many across the industry with Luminate Streaming Viewership (M) reporting over 1.6 billion minutes streamed since release. Its success and broad scale appeal, as a primarily foreign language program, speaks volumes about the evolving tastes of American audiences.

Diving deeper, we find incontrovertible threads of inclusivity and change weaving their way through the fabric of our entertainment landscape. In music, Latin and World Music (including K-Pop and Afrobeats) soared in 2023 as the fastest growing genres in the U.S.¹ Since 2021, we’ve also seen a -3.8 percentage points decrease in English-language music’s share of the top 10K most streamed songs in the country. Simply put, U.S. audiences are engaging with non-English music more than ever before. And it appears this trend is here to stay, as Millennial (57%) and Gen Z listeners (59%) show even greater propensity to listen to artists from other countries².



We also see a parallel trend unfolding in both TV and film where Parasite’s Best Picture win at the 2019 Academy Awards signaled a growing acceptance of foreign language content among American audiences. Soon after, Squid Game would go on to achieve a monoculturistic gravity not felt since Game of Thrones. Over time, we’ve seen this shift evolve even further, as Luminate Insights found that 39%³ of TV/movie viewers are currently watching subtitled, foreign language content across these formats (including streaming). Last month’s Oscars underscored this trend once more, as not one but three films prominently featuring subtitles all contended for the show's biggest prize.

On the small screen, global platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have spearheaded the influx and steady rise in this content. When it comes to streaming, Luminate Film & TV reports that Foreign Language is the only arena (a sub-categorization of ‘genre’) that’s seen an increasing number of program premieres in each of the past five years, with 2023 marking the first time the arena finished above all others in cumulative show premieres. This shift extends to film as well, where Foreign Language releases saw a +22% increase in 2023, finishing with more premieres than all other arenas and over twice the number of releases as the second place arena (Family).



Whether music, TV or film, the rise and increasing comfortability with foreign content seems to reflect a collective embrace and appetite for new experiences. So, as we await the next episode of Shōgun — and the myriad other foreign language gems awaiting discovery — it’s worth celebrating a world increasingly united by the universal language of entertainment.

Source:
¹ Measured by On-Demand Audio Streaming
² Listen to artists from other countries in a typical week
³ Have used subtitles in the past three months for Foreign Language content for TV/movies
Luminate Streaming Viewership (M), Luminate Year-End Music Report, Luminate U.S. Music 360 Q1 2024, Luminate Year-End Film & TV Report, Luminate Entertainment 365 Study W9


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