In the debut issue of Stems (now a collector’s item), we projected a year-over-year decline in music documentary premieres on the major streaming services based on the first six months of 2025. Now that it’s January, we’re following up as promised, and our projections have been borne out by the actual numbers: Media research firm Luminate has done their own count of music documentary premieres in their annual Year-End Music Report and verified that 2025 saw a 30% decline versus 2024.

But why? Luminate blames the decline on a ripple effect of the 2023 writers’ strike: Only scripted production was banned during the strike, which meant that streaming execs scrambling to fill their 2024 slates booked a lot of unscripted programming, i.e. documentaries and reality shows. That included a record number of music documentaries. When the strike ended, scripted production picked up again and bumped those music doc premieres down to pre-strike levels.

But music doc premieres didn’t return to their pre-strike level — they returned to the steady slide that’s been happening since their COVID-era peak, with premieres down 17% since 2022. To explain that, we’d point to the factors we discussed in September: fatigue with docs that were conceived more as a beat in an album promo campaign than anything else. Our hope would be that this inspires would-be music documentarians to emulate the best efforts of the last couple of years: docs that delivered actual revelations, creative approaches, and fresh angles into major artists’ lives. Because it looks like the market is going to keep tightening.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Hit me at [email protected].