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Using the media industry studies approach, this article examines the acquisition strategies and licensing practices employed by three recently launched niche Jewish/Israeli subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services. Drawing on qualitative interviews with executives and publicly available materials, this analysis argues that these services acquire film and television titles through a combination of traditional and innovative licensing arrangements intended to maximize access to Jewish-themed or Israeli-produced content unwanted by better funded platforms. The findings reveal the ways in which access to specific kinds of content is dependent on executives' ability to leverage preexisting industry-specific professional relationships as they attempt to maximize the value created from limited economic resources. As such, this article offers insights by contextualizing licensing practices being employed by niche SVODs across film and television industries while also highlighting the limitations of using the mainstream/niche binary to understand streaming distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the processes by which Netflix entered national pay-television markets in Israel and Spain. In both contexts, Netflix first establishes itself through collaborations with over-the-top (OTT) television operators and then expands through collaborations with legacy providers. By using the perspective of cross-national comparative research, this analysis complicates the scholarly understandings of subscription video on-demand (SVOD) global expansion by drawing attention to the significance of national multichannel providers. Given the differences between the Spanish and Israeli pay-TV markets, Netflix's similar pattern of engagement in each case highlights the value of understanding SVOD global expansion as a coherent industrial process that produces distinct, context-dependent outcomes. Ultimately, the histories of Netflix in Israel and Spain reveal that internationalization operates at a meso-level where collaborations with pay-television providers facilitate access to national audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]