At Passionflix, Tosca Musk Streams Shows of ‘Toe Curling Yumminess’

Moreover, the streaming gold rush is slowing down. At the very least, it is becoming harder to navigate. “The current marketplace for streaming services is noisy, with major streaming services spending millions to grab consumers’ attention, and niche services don’t have that kind of budget,” said Brett Sappington of Interpret, a media consultancy.

“Niche services are often at the mercy of aggregators such as smart TVs, streaming boxes or online platforms,” Mr. Sappington continued. “They have little negotiating power for revenue sharing, they are often last in line for developer support and they often can’t afford to have the prime, front-page spots on websites or app stores.”

More than 300 streaming services are available in the United States, according to Parks Associates, a consulting firm. The eight largest accounted for an estimated 88 percent of original content demand from January through March, according to Parrot Analytics. Niche services fought for the balance — outfits like Revry, for the L.G.B.T.Q. community; Bloody Disgusting, focused on horror fans; kweliTV, dedicated to Black culture; and little Passionflix.

But Ms. Musk is not about to give up.

“It’s just not in my genes,” she said, with a broad smile. “Our family motto could be: Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying.”

Elon Musk, of course, is the founder of SpaceX, the chief executive of Tesla and the planet’s wealthiest person; he struck a $44 billion deal in April to buy Twitter. Ms. Musk’s other older brother, Kimbal Musk, is a restaurant entrepreneur and farm-to-table food activist who sits on the boards of SpaceX and Tesla. Their force-of-nature mother, Maye Musk, is a model who recently published the memoir “A Woman Makes a Plan.” (For a time, Maye ran the Passionflix Instagram account.)

Ms. Musk described the typical Passionflix subscriber as “voraciously engaged” with the site, and that may be an understatement if Jan Edwards is any indication. Widowed in 2015 and retired from her human resources job in January, Ms. Edwards, 65, lives in Tuckerton, N.J., and has been a Passionflix subscriber since 2018. “I’m just putting laundry in the dryer — it’s an exciting day over here, let me tell you — so it’s a fine time to talk,” she said when a reporter phoned.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/business/media/tosca-musk-passionflix.html