Netflix again announced a substantial loss of subscribers in its latest investor conference. The streaming platform lost 970,000 customers in the second quarter of the year, but they see the glass as half full because their forecast was to lose 2 million users. The North American company is still looking for a way to make up for lost ground, but there is something that doesn’t bother them at all: traditional television. Indeed, Reed Hastings, the company’s co-CEO, even predicted the end of linear television “in the next five or ten years”.
The truth is, the data in the US is quite on his side. As Hastings commented in a letter to investors (via Variety): “In the United States, one of the most competitive markets in the world, we have accumulated more TV viewing time than any other network in the 2021-2022 season, almost equaling the combined total of the two most viewed channels. And, as Nielsen will announce on Thursday, our share in the US hit a record 7.7% in June (up from 6.6% in June 2021), demonstrating our ability to increase our acquisition rate while continuing to improve. our service “.. According to Nielsen, Netflix would have accumulated 1.33 billion minutes compared to CBS’s 753 billion minutes or NBC’s 597 billion minutes.
The end of traditional television, the rebirth of advertising
Netflix may be seeing the end of mainstream television near by, but one of the measures they’re willing to take to recover lost subscribers is more reminiscent of lifelong networks than streaming: ads. As we already knew, the streaming platform is preparing a cheaper subscription model that would incorporate advertisements. The plan is to implement it in early 2023 in several test countries where ad spend is high, and then roll it out to all markets. According to the company, they intend to create “a better advertising model than linear television, more fluid and relevant to consumers”.
But this ad subscription may have a greater disadvantage than having to eat ads. Reed Hastings has warned that some series and films that are not his originals but the licenses they have acquired may not be available on this cheaper subscription because the deals do not include broadcast with advertising.. The head of the company assures (via Deadline) that they are already negotiating with manufacturers to sign new agreements to release the version with ads, but we’ll see if they can get all of their catalog content ready for this subscription when they roll it out.
In addition to this new subscription, Netflix is still testing ways to control, or at least monetize, shared accounts. We recently learned that they would start a new test in five Latin American countries where would charge an additional fee for adding “additional families” to the head office.
Source: E Cartelera
