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Businesses The Internet Entertainment

Netflix's Subscriber Boom Shows the World is Accepting Internet TV (cnbc.com) 148

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Netflix's boom in subscribers is a sign that the world is accepting internet TV, meaning without commercials and on-demand, said CEO Reed Hastings during an earnings call with investors. From a report: "The basic demand is increasing as people get more comfortable and more aware of Internet television where you don't get the commercial interruptions, where you get to watch where and when you want," said Hastings. Netflix reported $2.47 billion in revenue during Q4 2016, and earnings per share of 15 cents. The streaming giant wildly beat its original projections for subscriber additions, bringing in 7.05 million new customers compared to its Q3 estimate of 5.2 million. The majority of adds were from international viewers. Even though some shows -- like "Gilmore Girls" -- started as traditional TV shows before moving to Netflix, a large part of the draw for new subscribers came from original shows. Almost half of the most searched for shows this year were Netflix originals, said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer. The company has 42 launches coming up, including Marvel's "Iron Fist" and Drew Barrymore's zombie comedy "Santa Clarita Diet."
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Netflix's Subscriber Boom Shows the World is Accepting Internet TV More

Netflix's Subscriber Boom Shows the World is Accepting Internet TV

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  • We have seen the future, and it is online subscription video!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Jhon ( 241832 )

      I saw the future 20+ years ago. I had DSL in an apartment rather than cable TV (I could afford one or the other -- not both). Antenna reception was crap. There were a bunch of sites that offered (then free) live video feeds (go go Real Video!). Local news, 1950's tv programming and even some cable programming. I lived that way for quite some time. Then I got married and wife just wanted to push a button and have the screen magically show what she wants to see. It was a few years ago when we finally g

      • It wasn't 1080p, but a lot of it was about as good as an analog TV could display.

        So, it was better than digital broadcast TV displays? Because digital TV is crap where I live. We stopped watching live TV a year ago because the reception was so spotty. Netflix and Hulu are good enough.

        My mother still watches TV, but I also just bought her a Chromecast dongle, and logged her into our Netflix account. She has cable internet (not cable TV), so might as well make use of it beyond email and Facebook.

        • Get a better antenna, friend. :-) If an 8-bay semi-directional on a tall mast, properly aimed (or on a rotator, if the towers are spread out) won't do the job, then you must either live way out in the boonies, or in a canyon, or in an urban canyon.

          • Get a better antenna, friend. :-) If an 8-bay semi-directional on a tall mast, properly aimed (or on a rotator, if the towers are spread out) won't do the job, then you must either live way out in the boonies, or in a canyon, or in an urban canyon.

            I can see the towers from my house and I have a flat roof. Easiest Yagi install ever. The Roku is still better though.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            Sadly, I do live in a canyon, or at least a valley. There's exactly 1 station I could get at low quality with a directional antenna - none with a normal antenna. Oh, well, maybe I'll live someplace flat next time.

          • I live in south west Florida, which is a flat as it gets. I don't know how far the towers are from me, but I'm at the edge of town, not out in the swamp. The channels come in clearly, except for every few seconds the picture freezes, or part of it has squares that stay the same as the rest of the picture changes. Or it just goes black for 10 seconds.

            I have tried several antennas and they all perform exactly the same, whether the box says 30 miles or 60 mile coverage. Tried a cheap rectangle of plastic, and

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jhon ( 241832 )

          "So, it was better than digital broadcast TV displays?"

          Quality of picture? Hello no. However, if the "signal" (slower bandwidth) was weak in Media Player or Real Player (or whatever), the most I would see was a "buffering" and a pause. On broadcast digital TV there's horrible artifacting, audio buzzes and skips that make the program unwatchable -- or it just doesn't come in at all.

          • On broadcast digital TV there's horrible artifacting, audio buzzes and skips that make the program unwatchable -- or it just doesn't come in at all.

            You need a better antenna setup. And live within 50-60 miles of your broadcast towers, ideally.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Jhon ( 241832 )

              I know. I was replying to someone who indicated problems with digital broadcasts "because the reception was so spotty." I compared 20 year old streaming quality to poor quality broadcast digital. Which is true -- (20 year old streaming with modest bandwidth problems) it was watchable while digital broadcasts with modest reception problems is not.

    • I'll stick to the antenna I've had on my roof for about the last 10 years. Do go right ahead and keep paying twice for your television shows, if it makes you happy: once for the internet connection, and again for the 'subscription'. All in all you're paying about as much as if you just kept paying for cable TV. Here in the U.S., there is a law that says you cannot be disallowed from having an antenna on your house for television reception, regardless of what any HOA tries to tell you. If you live in an apar

      • if you are already paying for internet access to.... you know... ACCESS THE INTERNET, like for instance to post on slashdot, then you cannot say it is a cost of Netflix or other online television subscription. you are already paying for internet access anyways, so netflix is only costing a whopping $7.99/mo

        given the amount of content available on netflix as compared to whatever tiny handful of channels you get from your antennae, i'd say that's a $7.99/mo well spent

  • Advertising and greed (Score:3)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @11:07AM (#53696489)
    Advertisers and network operators shat their beds and this is direct consequence of their greed. How greedy must you be to CHARGE $100/mo and then FORCE people to sit through 15 minutes of commercial per hour all while providing the worst possible customer service? Consumers, on the whole, are not stupid and will move away from business and practices that are not consumer friendly.

    At least initially, people moved to Netflix not because they had tons of good content, but because it was cheap and without ads. Now Netflix grew into viable challenger to established networks, in another couple years networks will start going out of business as subscriber loss keep accelerating.

    • I remember back in the 90's (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I remember back in the 90's when my cable company switched all of their channels to nothing but infomercials all night. In an instant they ditched 50% of their content, but prices did not go down at all. Then i noticed how they were cutting whole scenes out of some of my favorite shows so they could show more ads. I dont know what happened after that because i canceled service & havent looked back since.

      • Then i noticed how they were cutting whole scenes out of some of my favorite shows so they could show more ads. I dont know what happened after that because i canceled service & havent looked back since.

        Don't get me started! When I discovered METV, I thought it was great that I could watch some of the old shows from my youth. It didn't take long to find that large chunks of those shows were missing because of ads.

    • ... this is direct consequence of their greed.

      This.

      CEOs and shareholders want asymptotic revenue growth in a very short time. We all know what the top of that graph looks like. Growth is over pretty quickly and the greed motivation continues.

      It would be nice (not for greedy CEOs and shareholders) if a company would settle for a great lifestyle that it could maintain for many years and stop the boom/bust shit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      I think the cable companies started ramping prices to consumers first, then the networks caught on and began demanding more carriage fees, figuring that they weren't going to let the cable company profit while they didn't.

      Then the production companies and sports leagues caught on, and figured they weren't going to let the networks get fat and profitable, and THEY demanded more money, part of which the networks tried to make up with more advertising.

      And now we're in this spiral where they've gotten used to j

  • Jacking up rates, putting in resolution caps, you'll pay them one way or another. Here'sanother one that made the news yesterday [www.cbc.ca], coming into effect in less than 2 weeks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Sure, they can try, but in most countries they are or about to become common carriers. In Canada ISP already forced to offer wholesale rate to smaller reseller ISPs, so more of them will show up. Plus, this gouging will get Gov't involved - they are asking for repeat of breakup of Bell.

      • Re:And ISPs are jacking up rates (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @11:19AM (#53696579)

        Plus, this gouging will get Gov't involved - they are asking for repeat of breakup of Bell.

        You obviously have been in a coma for a while.

        Der Trumpenfuhrer and the Republicans who control congress are absolutely opposed to anything that prevents ISPs and the big media companies from screwing consumers as much as possible.

        Thanks to unlimited approval of mergers, the biggest ISPs, who have monopoly control of Internet access, are also owners of most of the content creators.

  • Title: "Netflix's Subscriber Boom Shows the World is Accepting Internet TV"

    Reality: Free TV is so full of commercials, people is paying just to avoid them. Happens with Internet TV that you can rip HQ from it (not like "private hardware home decoders" where you can't even plug an USB).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      I totally agree with this sentiment. I hate ads a lot, and Netflix offers an ad-free service. If that changes, I'm gone.

      • I hate ads a lot...

        I also hate ads, and not just because they are jarring to view. I hate them because they encourage broadcasting to the lowest common denominator viewer. Companies act as if ad revenue has to continually increase or something is wrong. They continually try to widen out their audience in a bit to increase ad revenue until we get TLC and The History Channel showing horrible formulaic reality TV shows that most viewers who have a half a brain and a soul find repugnant. I watch Netflix because I find many of the

    • Free TV is so full of commercials, people is paying just to avoid them

      Maybe, but some of us paid ONCE: I have a DVR (Tivo), turn on 30-second skip, rarely see even part of a commercial. Rarely if ever watch 'live' TV, either, so it's really not a problem for me.

  • On demand availability and no unnecessary junk. Of course this would turn everyone to Netflix and similar services.
    What I find interesting is that traditional media execs. didn't try and stop it or massively slow the pace of aforementioned services as their industry will die off in the long run (remember that the industry didn't want to put their music up on Spotify due to not making enough revenue, or that they tried to make the .mp3 format illegal in the olden days?) Maybe I missed it or I jinxed it. Eith

    • What I find interesting is that traditional media execs. didn't try and stop it or massively slow the pace of aforementioned services as their industry will die off in the long run

      They did try to sabotage it. On the content owner side, they attacked Netflix by trying to hold back their best titles so that they could turn Netflix into "the service that only has stuff nobody cares about." This is one reason why Netflix has invested in their Original Series.

      On the cable TV side, they slowed down Netflix (one o

      • They might try, but I have noticed in the rare times I subject myself to advertisement TV that Time Warner et al cite Netflix performance as an asset when selling their internet services. At least in areas with a little competition (I'm lucky to have WOW and TWC in my area competing) they won't be able to stuff Netflix performance without losing customers.

        • Unfortunately, for me, my only option for wired high speed Internet is TWC (now called Spectrum). If I don't like their prices or speeds, I really have no other option.

  • Ad aversion (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Netflix have made me ultrasensitive to ads. For me is now near impossible to follow a regular tv broadcast. Ads are too distracting (thats a feature!!, some might say). Even when Netflix's movie collection is bland and somewhat old, their original content for the most part is entertaining and with good production values. I have been a Netflix costumer for about 2 years and I don't plan to cut it.

    On demand video is definitely way more customer friendly than regular television and those numbers say that

    • See too. That is interesting is that when you watch content made for TV channels with ads on something like Netflix, you realize how bad many TV shows are and how much content they reuse. :D

    • I often wonder how Hulu's numbers look these days[1]. It was freaking amazing back in 2008, with very short ads and a great library of old and new shows. Then they started pushing their subscription service heavily (which also had ads), their free catalog shrank dramatically, they disallowed free Hulu usage on traditional TV-connected devices, and they maintained their ~8 day delay on new episodes (so Hulu watchers would always be missing something important if they happened to watch a new episode on TV.)

      • Hulu's a lot better than it used to be. It has an ad-free option, shows have a one day delay, and it works fine on my Roku. Though its selection is smaller than Netflix, it has some stuff that NF doesn't.

  • More Incentives for Bandwidth Caps, Net Neutrality (Score:3)

    by Koreantoast ( 527520 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @11:20AM (#53696587)
    Sadly, for those of us in the United States at least, this will just give additional motivation for domestic ISP's to start capping monthly data at home. Also, with net neutrality on the ropes, they can try and extract their "cut" by forcing streaming services to pay up so that they can bypass data caps and bandwidth limitations.

    • I'm in the US, we have Charter for internet and AT&T for cable (good UI). Both offer cable.

      We aren't there yet, but I could see, through terribly lengthy litigation, a class action that forces local monopolies to divest internet and cable offerings. You can offer one, an independent company has to offer the other.

      That said, I do have two internet choices, and Charter isn't bad at all ($40 per month unbundled, uncapped, 100/10 service, we stream 3-4 hours a day, no problems). The cable is expensive bu

  • What people really do is trying to escape the ads with bits of programming strewn in between that free TV has become. Advertising has poisoned the very soil they've been living off with their attitude that people cannot escape their clutches.

    Guess what: People could.

    It's the same that happened to online advertisers who thought they could push obnoxious ads onto people until even the least technically inclined person got off their ass and installed an adblocker. And the same is happening to TV. Geeks and oth

    • And even more important is the time you saved, you can watch a 45 minute show in only 23 minutes. I.e. without the fuckin' ads.

      That's why I use DVR for practically everything I watch now, to skip the ads.

      It used to be that there were 4 ads shown every 15 minutes. Now they are up to 6 ads, for some shows, and they have started showing mini-content (4 to 5 minutes) between two sets of ads. It's definitely at the point where a TV show is unwatchable in real time.

      • And between "you cannot tape this show" and "you cannot fast forward through this part", the whole DVR has become obsolete for most applications unless you know how to remove that bullshit from the equation. Yes, you can do that, maybe I can if I could be assed to find it out, but Joe Randomwatcher cannot.

        And he will not give a shit about it if there's an alternative that doesn't require him to because there isn't anything to tape (the show happens when you want it) and there isn't anything to fast forward

        • And between "you cannot tape this show" and "you cannot fast forward through this part", the whole DVR has become obsolete for most applications unless you know how to remove that bullshit from the equation.

          I haven't run into a commercial yet that my Tivo can't fast forward through. I can't be bothered with services like Sling that won't let you skip commercials. Just not worth the money to waste my life watching ads.

        • And between "you cannot tape this show" and "you cannot fast forward through this part"

          I've had Tivo since the Series 2 came out and have never been prevented from recording whatever I want or skipping/fast forwarding through anything I want, so I don't know what you're talking about. I know the technology exists to do that, but I've never had it happen to me nor have I ever heard of it happening to anyone.

  • Who the heck wants to be "saddled" watching a show at a set time, or, waiting til next week or 2-3-4 weeks to watch the next show? In the winter, when you can't get out and do anything, I'll veg out and watch a bunch of shows back to back.

    • I couldn't even watch at set time when I DIDN'T have a DVR. I recorded on my VCR like crazy in the 90s when I was too busy to watch many evenings.

      It is good to have a bunch of shows on Netflix right now during the winter break when regular TV is even crappier than usual.

  • You buy internet from cable company. Trump kills FCC, net neutrality dies, cable ISP blocks competition. Cord cutters cant watch online subscriptions. Cord cutting services close. Cable sees boom in subscription from forced subscriptions. Networks no longer required to provide OTA feeds. Free television disappears. America loses.

    • I don't think it will go that way.
      if "cord cutting services close", I won't be going back to cable. I can't, it isn't worth it, even if I got the cable into my house for free I wouldn't even bother to connect it.

    • Don't forget: Cable companies price TV+Internet bundles at a much lower cost than Internet-only thus luring cord-cutters back in the fold "to save money." (And even if you put the cable box in the closet without ever connecting it, you're counted as a subscriber.)

    • Free television disappears

      *weary sigh* No, friend, it does NOT. Get an antenna! All the Free TV you can stand!

  • I finally had enough of Time Warner and fired them for video delivery. Fuck them and their abuse of CCI "CopyOnce" flagging that amounts to rent-seeking by eliminating all non-rented choices for a DVR system except for Windows Media Center (EOL) and TiVo (not really your own).

    I now have faster internet speeds, and Sling TV for $40/month cheaper, with all the same channels. And I recycled the box I was using for Windows Media Center into an Ubuntu 16 / MythTV box for recording OTA HD programming at far bet

  • There will be commercials (probably) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @12:16PM (#53697045)

    Netflix's boom in subscribers is a sign that the world is accepting internet TV, meaning without commercials and on-demand, said CEO Reed Hastings

    Yeah we've seen the "no commercials" promise before when cable TV was becoming a thing and it was bullshit then too. They'll only stay away from commercials long enough to get a subscriber base. Commercials are where most of the money is and it will be hard for them to ignore that fact. I have a hard time imagining Netflix being immune to the siren's call of that much cash forever.

    • I honestly don't remember a promise of no commercials from Cable, only certain channels one could receive from cable. Some of the available channels, like early HBO did say "commercial free" because you paid (and most likely still do) for the subscription. Subscription based TV is why people go to Netflix and watch Netflix owned shows. Just like I pay for CRTV and watch their shows. The "Free" Youtube content can have commercials, but if you subscribe you don't get them either.

      Networks who continue to u

      • I honestly don't remember a promise of no commercials from Cable, only certain channels one could receive from cable.

        That's because cable companies could not promise "no commercials" for any channel EVER*. Cable began as a way of retransmitting broadcast stations to people who could not put up their own antennas (CATV is "community antenna TV"), and broadcast stations have ALWAYS had ads.

        It wasn't until cable had enough market saturation and satellite services matured to the point that satellite-delivered content networks like HBO became available, and it was HBO's promise of "no ads", not the cable TV company.

        * with th

    • Yeah, but it's a lot easier to offer alternative digital offerings on the internet than it is with something that requires a dedicated physical connection/hardware to customers' house (cable/satellite).

      That, and the "piracy" alternative is always there too.

      Competition - whether legal or otherwise - can help prevent bad behavior.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Yeah we've seen the "no commercials" promise before when cable TV was becoming a thing and it was bullshit then too. They'll only stay away from commercials long enough to get a subscriber base. Commercials are where most of the money is and it will be hard for them to ignore that fact. I have a hard time imagining Netflix being immune to the siren's call of that much cash forever.

      Is it really? Take the Superbowl which is one of the few items where we have pretty much all the numbers. In 2014 there was 49 minutes 15 seconds of commercials, $4.5 million average per 30 second slot and 111.4 million viewers. That works out to a little less than $4 per viewer. So if you offered $5 to watch it ad-free you'd be beating the advertisers. That's not bad for about four hours of entertainment with both a football game and the half time show and it's supposed to be super-expensive compared to no

    • Re:There will be commercials (probably) (Score:4, Insightful)

      by antdude ( 79039 ) on Friday January 20, 2017 @03:31AM (#53701813) Homepage Journal

      People will leave then. It weould be nice to have payments for no commercials and free with commercials.

  • Matter of time (Score:3)

    by cloud.pt ( 3412475 ) on Thursday January 19, 2017 @12:18PM (#53697059)

    Do not give too much control over a single industry to a single corporate interest. I am a netflix subscriber splitting a 4k account 4-ways, but I have absolutely no doubt when they have the market they want, the only way they are gonna keep investors interested, the 3rd-party studios low-balling prices, or their own production assets happy with their salaries is by breaking the current service in some way. It surely won't be ads, but I'm betting 4k or even HD will at some point increase to become prohibitively expensive for a big chunk of their user base that currently has those and people will have to compromise. (it already increased in the past). Either that or the account-sharing capability will be cut-off.

    Subscription services have flat rates, and when the user-base stops growing and also becomes flat while you have already optimized your entire business process, the company freezes financially, which is also known as stagnation. If you look at other industries that have peaked, such as ISP and other communication providers, you know exactly what happens: they increase prices, decrease quality, or bundle useless services to artificially raise prices. And these guys have competition to cope with, while Netflix is like Apple and Android ecosystems together, while Hulu, HBO Go and whatever else are like Windows Phone. It's not gonna be pretty when it happens.

    And... Spotify is gonna be just the same, with the difference the music industry provides a infinitesimally cheaper product (music production is almost free when compared to film/tv) at a much higher end-user cost. Spotify knows they have a high-margin, "premium" feeling product and they don't sell it cheap. There's a reason they are so restrictive with family plans as opposed to Netflix account sharing.

    Different industry example: Console games - just launched prices have risen from around 40bucks to 70 in less than a decade. Another industry: smartphones - top-tier flagships now cost more than 1000 dollars unlocked. The first iPhone fully spec'd out cost 599$ while top of the line 7 Plus costs 969$. 370 bucks is no joke my friends, apple needs cash to build that UFO.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by radish ( 98371 )

      Console games are $60 (at least in the US). It's also easy to get them for less than that, as an Amazon Prime or Best Buy subscriber you can get them for $48 on release day. I'm also not sure where your $40 figure comes from, everything I can find points to the prices being considerably higher. For example, this article [ign.com] looks at game pricing over history and concludes they're cheaper now than ever (adjusting for inflation).

      You are right about phones, but I'd say that the specs of the top end phones have als

      • As I replied to Wraithlyn, I have a geographical bias to provide those examples. It doesn't make the rest any less true.

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Wraithlyn ( 133796 )

      Console games - just launched prices have risen from around 40bucks to 70 in less than a decade.

      Console game prices (major studio releases, not indie titles) have been in the $50-$70 range for decades.

      AAA console games like Street Fighter II and Final Fantasy III had release prices of $70, and that was 25 years ago.

      Adjusting for inflation, console games have never been cheaper [arstechnica.com].

      • I might be biased: the EU market (specifically the euro-zone, where I live) rarely get's a game on release day for less than 69EUR. UK is luckier but still not US-level. Some months ago, before the Brexit vote which affected GBP and EUR against the USD, 69EUR was close to 85USD, and now it's still a good 74USD .

        I should have made that clearer, and maybe it wasn't the best example due to the obvious technology price gap. For reference, and a clear example, the Nintendo Switch is being pre-sold at 300USD, 280

        • I feel ya. I'm in Canada and Netflix selection blows compares to the US.

          On the flip side, I pay $9.99 CAD which is only $7.68 USD. Hurray for the weak Canadian dollar?

  • Producing their own original content was a smart more for Netflix. Everybody knows that their streaming movie selection sucks nowadays and you have to get the old fashioned DVDs in the mail for a decent choice. But for streaming TV shows of good quality it's a pretty good deal, especially since they allow people to share accounts. In fact they say the subscriber model for TV goes some way to explaining the rising quality of scripted TV in certain areas. Shows like Kings were really good but didn't do so we

    • Programming costs money, which puts them in the same bind as the Networks: Programming is not cheap.

      "Investors brought up concerns over increasing costs. For fiscal 2017, Netflix said its free cash flow deficit will be about $2 billion in 2017, compared to $1.7 billion in 2016, which is because the company wants to own "more content and more content categories," said chief financial officer David Wells." http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/18... [cnbc.com]

      So it won't be long before commercials show up on Netflix or see

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  • Too bad it's mostly Netflix Originals, 99% of which I have no interest in. Still...I'd stick with Netflix before going Dish/Cable.

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