Netflix CEO: Broadcast TV Will Be Dead By 2030
Netflix CEO: Broadcast TV Will Be Dead By 2030
Nielsen Ratings are going to finally factor in Netflix
traffic. Reed Hastings thinks it's too little, too late.
By Jack Smith IV 11/28 11:15am
If you checked Nielsen Ratings, you’d think that the only
people watching TV were age 54 and older (and you’d be right), and that
Millennials are a black hole of immeasurable Internet content consumption—that
is, until Nielsen starts measuring Netflix traffic next month.
But what does Netflix CEO Reed Hastings think about
Nielsen’s bold step forward? Earlier this week, in Mexico City, he said that
it’s “not very relevant” either way, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
For Nielsen, this might look like modernization, but for
those of us ready to enter 2015, it’s more like a move from the Mesozoic to the
Paleozoic Era.
“It’s kind of like the horse, you know, the horse was
good until we had the car,” Mr. Hastings said. “The age of broadcast TV will probably
last until 2030.”
The trouble is how Nielsen intends on reporting streaming
ratings: Nielsen will capture audio from home televisions, which accounts for
no traffic from people binge-watching on their phones or curled up in bed with
a laptop. It’ll capture some of the traffic, sure, but Netflix will always be
able to say, “that’s like, a fraction of the real viewership.” And they’d be
right.
But 2030 seems mightly early, no? Well, given that TV
viewership dropped a full 50% between 2002 and 2012—which is largely before the
advent of cord-slaying streaming habits—the future for the next 15 years of
broadcast television is possibly catastrophic.
You’d think that by now, cable companies would have some
sort of half-baked strategy to prevent companies like Netflix from eating their
lunch.
Comments
Post a Comment