Analyst: Netflix would be most-watched "cable network"

[Rick]

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings noted on Facebook that his company served up some four billion hours of streaming video in 2013 -- and we're not even done with April. He also plugged an upcoming Netflix original series named Hemlock Grove, a horror-genre show directed by Eli Roth.

With over one billion hours of content consumed per month, there is little question Netflix is a huge operation, but how does it stack up against "real" television networks? One analyst, Richard Greenfield, decided to crunch the numbers.

Greenfield noted there are 28.1 million Netflix subscribers in the U.S. who are consuming an average of 43 hours of content per month. That means the average Netflix subscriber puts their $7.99 per month membership to good use, watching nearly 1.5 hours of content per day. 

With that in mind, he estimates that if Netflix were a cable TV network, it would likely be the most watched network.

"We believe Netflix streaming per sub/day is now over 87 [minutes] and, in turn, Netflix is now likely the most watched cable network, essentially in-line with the Disney Channel," Greenfield estimated on the BTIG blog (registration required).

Last summer, Netflix subscribers were watching about 79 minutes per day. The new figure of 87 minutes indicates subscribers are inserting more Netflix into their daily entertainment diets.

Netflix's success has been partly attributed to its heavy investment in developing original content. House of Cards appears to be the poster child of Netflix originals, becoming a wildly popular show -- perhaps even the most popular show for a brief period of time. At least, that's what IMDb's algorithmic analysis indicated in February. 

Of course, Netflix doesn't seem to put much stock in Nielsen-style viewership numbers. Since the company relies on subscriptions, not advertisements, to generate revenue, Netflix has their own criteria to determine the successful content.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/52229-analyst-netflix-would-be-most-watched-cable-network.html

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

"With that in mind, he estimates that if Netflix were a cable TV network, it would likely be the most watched network."

If we're going to group internet viewing in with cable networks I'm pretty sure Youtube would be tops. I know... youtube is free and netflix is a subscription like a cable network.

Still kinda unfair to compare. A cable channel can only show one show at a time, while Netflix can broadcast thousands of different shows at a time.

 

[psycros]

The numbers are unreliable because Netflix only offers video-on-demand. They don't have a broadcast schedule like cable or satellite. Take the streaming numbers for the first week that House of Cards was available and compare that to the first week of VOD access for the latest Game of Thrones (on the top five cable providers at least). That would give you a much better picture of where Netflix stands.

 

[Renrew]

^ Hemlock: Another soap with some gratuitous T&A. No thanks.

 

[DelJo63]

The whole fuss re cable subscriptions is the grouping of packages of junk with only one winner to entice the customer. We view a lot of Netflix (aka onDemand) because we get to choose what and when. The cable industry is in trouble over packaging and pricing, and I'm about to pull the plug on TWC and go with Verizon which will save us $50USD per month. Cable providers have resisted the cafeteria style pricing (aka pay for what you view) fearing that revenues would not be sufficient to retain profits.

Considering the 2013 Network offerings and the choices from TWC - - they are spot on - - produce and offer trash and the consumer will go elsewhere (hint: Netflix).

 

[Julio Franco]

I agree with most of the opinions above (MilwaukeeMike, psycros, jobeard, etc.), just wanted to add, though somewhat unrelated, House of Cards, that's quality TV.

 

[SNGX1275]

Julio Franco House of Cards is decent, and it is well produced. But I thought Lillehammer was better.

Possibly interesting personal note - I usually put something on netflix to go to bed to. Last night I was going to play X-Files, which I do often. But, I noticed Hunger Games was available. I have a local copy of Hunger Games on my PC, but, Netflix putting that up right in front of me made me click through and 'watch' despite having a local copy - simply because it was literally easier to click the link than to open Explorer and find my copy. So glad my ISP doesn't have bandwidth usage caps. I'm worried that will change in the future.

 

[Guest]

Look it's Kevin Spacey's blood oath to Satan...what else is new?

 

[tipstir]

I had ditched my expensive $2,000 a year cable TV, 4x DVR/HDTV boxes, and their Digital Phone service replaced all of this with my own HDTV ANT + pre-amp and 8-way drop amp, which I get 67 DTV channels full Dolby Digital 5.1 or 7.1 if I use MCE. For Cell for the main phone. This is a lot better than giving so much to the cable company for lousy and not so clear reception. Once all of this equipment was gone my electric was lower by $30 to $40 bucks a month. Takes time to kick in though. I used Netflix as I can watch and watch and watch all the movies or tv events I want too anytime. Cable TV doesn't do that for me and even if they did they were trying to charge $4.95 for their so call Netflix clone service. Anyway Netflix Rocks!

 

[Guest]

Ok, so Netflix is massive and doing huge numbers, however the majority of the content being consumed was created by THE TV NETWORKS, without the networks content they literally wouldn't exist. Certainly their own shows will get popular (I'm very interested in the Eli Roth show!) but it still wouldn't be enough to put them at the level they're at now. It's easy to bash the networks but what would we have without them? The amount of money made through online advertising would pale in comparison to the amount made through tv networks (at least at this time), and even with subs it's still a night and day comparison.

That being said, I am on the verge of cancelling my cable, not because it's all bad or that I don't like having to watch things at a certain time, but because, like many others have said, when you pay for cable you have to pay for a bunch of garbage networks and shows that you don't watch. For ~$65 a month I get about 70 channels, and I watch maybe a dozen of them. The rest? Not interested. I don't want to pay for shows about cake baking, I don't want to pay for shows about deck building, I don't want to pay for entire networks that literally run no shows that I watch, it's ridiculous.

If the people behind all the tv networks are smart they will shut down a huge chunk of the channels that are out there now and focus on networks and shows that people actually watch. We got in this mess with cable because of the big promises of the 80's and 90's of "hundreds of channels" being available. Most of those channels, unfortunately, suck. In my opinion there only needs to be about 20-30 networks out there, at most, and all of them have to have high quality programming instead of having hundreds of channels that have inferior quality programming.

Case in point: Here in Canada, we have a network called MuchMusic. On MM they used to run music videos, now they run awful, AWFUL tv shows and if you want to see music videos you have to pay x-amount/month for the rock channel, or the rap/pop channel, etc... They need to dump the side channels and go back to running music videos on one network again.

 

[Raoul Duke]

I have chosen not to have a TV partly due to the cost, but mainly because I cannot take the lousy shows and 17 minutes of ads every hour. It literally drives me insane even with the mute button. With Netflix Canada there are great movies on demand, commercial free, in HD often, for all of $9.00 CAD. I am already paying for internet so it is no extra expense. I cannot conceive of a greater value out there. I am a disabled veteran (so cost is a factor) watching on a 24" 16:10 IPS panel 1900 x 1200 (Dell U2412-$300 CAD) and it is great. Would like to move to 27" (U2713HM) at 2560 x1440 ($600 CAD), I imagine I would be even happier with Netflix. Very, very few TV shows I like and again on Netflix no ads. I only mention monitors as they do affect viewing experience. Only Dell product I have been impressed with is monitors lest I seem like I'm promoting Dell.