The very nature of new and digital media means the landscape is constantly changing and examiners love seeing examples from the days and weeks leading up to the exam.
You may want to look back at your index of NDM stories you have been collecting weekly since September - this is when finding great articles all year really pays off. Other good sources are the usual newspaper media/tech pages...
The Guardian: Digital Media
The Guardian: Technology
The Independent: Media News
We've also been linking stories from our Twitter account all year - @blogmacguffin - so make sure you're following that and look back at what we've posted over the last couple of months too.
- Netflix has 8.2m subscribers in the UK and 4.3m British households are signed up to Amazon Prime Video, according to figures from the TV ratings body Barb.
- The BBC, which has traditionally dominated the UK TV and radio landscape, recently said it risked being overtaken by competitors as viewers move inexorably towards on-demand viewing. The corporation owns the UK’s biggest and most recognisable video service, iPlayer, but has conceded that 16 to 24-year-olds spend more time with Netflix in a week than with all of BBC TV, including iPlayer.
- Another option might be to revitalise a workable plan to expand BritBox and a third to launch a whole new brand and subscription video-on-demand service.
- The broadcasters understand the strategic benefits of some form of potential tie-up of their catch-up TV and on-demand services, but history says it will be fraught with difficulty.
- It is the third time in just over a decade that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have endeavoured to set aside decades of rivalry to join together to secure a digital future for British TV. Previous efforts to balance the commercial and public service remits they follow have proved challenging.
- The user behaviour that cable TV providers fear most — cord cutting — is projected to accelerate over the next five years. EMarketer estimates that by 2021, over 81 million U.S. consumers will have either cut their cords or never signed up for one in the first place, up 64 percent from today.
- It is an axiom that live sports are holding many cable bundles together. But even the structural factors that make live sports so attractive to broadcasters and advertisers are not a match for changing user behavior, and some predict those changes will start corroding live sports ratings. Research published this month by Magna Global predicts substantial ratings declines for the 2018 Olympics.
- Millennials’ hunger for video on demand is widely tipped to continue
- “In 2017, 15 per cent of the total audiences for programs such as The Bachelor Australia and The Bachelorette Australia came from online catch-up,” she said.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/060815/how-netflix-changing-tv-industry.asp
- Netflix is currently the dominant company in the relatively young and hugely expensive on-demand media industry. By providing on-demand content, creating compelling original shows, using user data to better serve customers and letting customers consume content in the way that they prefer, Netflix is forcing cable companies to change the way they do business. In the long-run, Netflix's success may be viewed as the first step in the unbundling of cable.
- Netflix is essentially a storehouse of content, including movies, documentaries, TV shows and educational programs. Customers pay a flat monthly fee and can consume any content at any time from whichever platform they prefer. In a sense, it is the first major disruption of television, which has become the dominant medium since its inception and proliferation in the middle of the 20th century.
- Crushing The Competition
- Netflix had humble beginnings, starting as a website where people could rent DVDs online and get them through the mail. In this version of the service, it competed with television for people's entertainment time, but it competed more directly with established physical rental locations. Netflix then came out with on-demand shows, which made it superior to physical stores and television in many ways, as consumers were able to watch what they wanted, when they wanted.
- This innovation helped end the movie rental business and made it more important for cable companies and TV networks to begin offering on-demand content. Soon, Netflix began competing with TV networks directly for original content. While TV networks only approved shows based on pilots hitting certain metrics, Netflix became a more attractive destination for showrunners and script writers because it offered upfront contracts to create an entire season or two. Netflix also started uploading entire seasons at once, essentially creating the binge-watching atmosphere, in contrast to the once-a-week programming model. Many TV networks are experimenting with this model, even if it means sacrificing ad revene
- Additionally, showrunners were given leeway in being allowed to pursue their own visions without notes or approval from the network. This resulted in some of the best new TV shows being on Netflix instead of TV networks, including "House of Cards," "Orange Is the New Black" and "Daredevil." Netflix's success has forced TV networks to be more aggressive in retaining talent by paying them more generously and giving them more freedom. One source of Netflix's success and stock price appreciation has been its original content, creating a loyal user base.
- Another innovation of Netflix was to mine for user data aggressively. This data was initially sought to serve customers and help them find content that would appeal to them. However, Netflix also uses this data to determine what type of original content the company should create. This has led to Netflix having a higher success rate in manufacturing hits. Letting showrunners make decisions on content rather than business executives and finding genres and talent that the audience already likes are the key factors behind Netflix's success in taking on this entrenched industry.
- Netflix also forced the TV industry to change its ways by giving customers the flexibility to consume content in the exact way they desire based on their needs. Customers can watch the same TV show or movie on a computer, TV screen, tablet, phone or gaming device. Until a few years ago, most mainstream television could only be consumed on television. Of course, this has changed largely due to Netflix.
- The Bottom Line
- Netflix's success has been deemed an existential threat for the TV industry. Many consumers have already cut the cord from existing cable, as Netflix is 20% of the cost of most cable packages. Further, there are no cumbersome ads. Unbundling of cable is the TV networks' worst fear; they would no longer receive regular revenue from being part of a cable package. Instead, they would have to compete on their own merits. Netflix's success brings this closer to being a reality.
- Enter: Netflix. The streaming service releases entire seasons of its shows all at once, a strategy that arguably encourages creators to reconsider or reallocate emphasis within this viewing relationship. If a show fails to woo us on episode one, the next episode is a mere 15 seconds away from starting. Why not give it the benefit of the doubt? Without a week in between each installment, the Netflix model potentially extends the courtship period. With each episode right at our fingertips, a relationship with a series that 2 requires consistent viewing no longer seems so high-maintenance. At the same time, the level of access that comes with the streaming catalog suggests that if this series disappoints us, moving on could prove to be simpler than it once was. These relationships hardly exist in a vacuum. Rather, they are subject to external forces that guide the mass medium. Technological and industrial shifts have continually modified the ways in which series are produced and delivered since the birth of television. In turn, these changes have impacted how creators tell stories and how viewers receive them. Recently, the rise of streaming has been a prominent development in the television landscape. Streaming technology has been around for some time, but the inciting force that disrupted the status quo arose through industry rather than technology. A key player came to the fore and realigned the way that people think about television
- Even before Netflix was a platform for original series, it was already changing the ways that viewers access, control, and watch television. Once just a distributor of television, it has now itself become television, offering creators a new playground upon which to experiment. In conducting these experiments, creators both reaffirm and redefine televisuality and the viewing relationship. Netflix has not fundamentally altered the face of television, but it has certainly expanded its definition, and its series have elaborated on the aesthetics of the medium. The service has simultaneously embraced television and posed itself as an alternative. By releasing its series all at once, Netflix drew a distinction from the weekly model, which had hitherto defined the viewing experience. Ushering in a new world order of television delivery, it announced the release of House of Cards with two simple words: Now streaming.
- Netflix, which started out as a DVD postal delivery service in the late Nineties, doesn’t function like a traditional broadcaster. It is a game‑changer, a disruptive force that has decisively altered the way we watch television and film. There are no schedules or live shows: subscribers are simply free to stream any of Netflix’s thousands of films and series to watch when they want and where they want, whether on a traditional television, a tablet or a mobile phone.
- But Netflix, along with other video-on-demand giants such as Amazon Prime and Hulu, hasn’t just changed the way we consume television: it’s changed the way it is made. As with House of Cards – Netflix’s first foray into producing its own shows, in 2013 – all the episodes of the first series of The Crown were available to stream on the day of its launch. Not being tied to a traditional TV schedule means that the lengths of Netflix episodes can vary to suit the plotline. It’s less important to end on a cliffhanger, because you can just binge-watch a whole load of episodes at once. It’s a formula that’s been vastly successful, with 80 million worldwide subscribers and rising. (The BBC and ITV are rumoured to be working together on launching “Britflix” in response.)
- Subscribers mean data. And the more subscribers Netflix gets, the more data it amasses – what we watch, when we watch, which episodes get us hooked, even when we hit the rewind button to watch a scene again.
- Networks are changing the way they develop and release new shows, and even commercials, as they seek to adapt to new TV viewing habits and profit from the “binge-watching” made popular by video streaming services like Netflix
- TV executives are also working with advertisers to change commercials, so binging viewers stay engaged. Experiments include making brands part of the show on Turner
- The changes reflect a realisation that fewer people, particularly younger viewers, watch shows when they air and instead binge-watch series like Netflix’s House of Cards or Orange is the New Black.
- “The streaming platforms have created a more competitive environment and we all need to deliver better,” said David Levy, president of Turner.
- Netflix is leaving an indelible mark on the TV biz — and while the streaming giant isn’t dealing a fatal blow to the industry, it is seriously cutting into traditional television ratings.
- In 2015, Netflix accounted for about half of the overall 3% decline in TV viewing time among U.S. audiences, according to a new study by Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson. The analyst calculated that based on an estimate that Netflix’s domestic subs streamed 29 billion hours of video last year (Netflix said members worldwide watched 42.5 billion hours in 2015). That would represent 6% of total American live-plus-7 TV viewing reported by Nielsen (up from 4.4% in 2014).
- Moreover, Nathanson predicts Netflix’s total streaming hours as a percentage of TV viewing will continue to rise to about 14% by 2020. “Currently, Netflix is a source of industry pain, but not necessarily a cause of industry death,” he wrote in the note.
- not all TV networks are suffering from the rise of Netflix and other streaming-video services, Nathanson noted. Total viewing of networks from Time Warner, Scripps Networks Interactive, AMC Networks and Discovery Communications rose in 2015. A+E Networks’ viewing hours declined 15%, Viacom fell 13%, and NBCUniversal and Disney each dropped 5% overall.
- In comparing TV viewing of Netflix vs. non-Netflix households, broadcast networks took the biggest hit in 2015. CBS viewing among Netflix subs was 42% lower than non-subs, with Fox at -35%, ABC at -32% and NBC at -27%, according to Nathanson’s analysis.
- Meanwhile, viewing time of Disney’s networks last year was 11% higher in Netflix homes versus non-Netflix homes. Viacom saw a “modest” 5% year-over-year drop in Netflix homes; in that case, “it is unclear if this is as a result of viewership which has already been negatively impacted by SVOD services in prior years, or if the company’s younger-skewing viewers are switching back and forth more easily to watch both linear television and SVOD services,” Nathanson wrote.
- Based on viewing time, Netflix in 2015 was bigger than smaller cable programmers like A+E and AMC, but not as large as the seven biggest conglomerates (NBCUniversal, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, Discovery and CBS).
- One caveat on the analysis: Nielsen’s Live+7 excludes online and mobile viewing on TV networks’ sites and apps. But Nielsen hours-viewed numbers adjust for co-viewing, whereas Netflix’s reported data is per household. According to Nathanson, that means Netflix per-person viewing is underrepresented relative to Nielsen Live+7; thus, the analyst assumes the two factors largely cancel each other out.
- Other studies have compared Netflix’s viewing to traditional TV. The service was on track to attract a larger 24-hour audience than each of the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) some time in 2016, per an analysis last summer by FBR Capital Markets.
https://one.rawnet.com/blog/the-netflix-effect-the-positive-impact-on-british-broadcasting
- There have been a lot of articles in the news recently about the negative impact of SVOD platforms such as Netflix and Amazon on the traditional broadcasting market – particularly their impact on original British content. Earlier this week, the BBC Director General, Tony Hall, warned that British content is under “serious threat” from such platforms as investment in the industry shifts towards the more expensive content more likely to attract audiences of global size. While there is no doubt that the rise of SVOD platforms is leading to a shift in the broadcast market, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all doom and gloom.
- Many people foresee a future where Netflix, Amazon & Apple reign supreme. Millennials, in particular, are seemingly champions of Netflix, with original content such as Orange is the New Black, Narcos & Stranger Things becoming viral (and don’t pretend you don’t know what ‘Netflix and Chill’ means). However, a recent report by Mediatique, commissioned by the BBC, found that traditional Pay TV penetration in the UK has actually increased by 15% over the last 10 years, despite the rise of mega players like Netflix. Furthermore, their research indicated that services like Netflix and Amazon are “seen as largely additive, as opposed to substitutive”¹ in simple terms, UK Sky customers aren’t going to leave in favour of Netflix, they’re going to get a subscription alongside their current package. Netflix will not monopolise the market, they’ll simply complement what’s already there.
- Ofcom itself noted that spend on first-run UK content from all the PSBs was still below what it was a decade ago, so if anything that’s where the deficit has come from – not from pay-TV companies and subscription streaming players, who are actually upping their investment in Britain’s production sector.
https://one.rawnet.com/blog/has-the-netflix-model-peaked/
- As the Netflix model redefines everything in its path, we question its longevity and shine the beacon of hope for the well-established traditional players in the market, currently suffering from unprecedented bidding wars for TV's best content.
- Its rise to success has been rapid, and if we're all honest took us a bit by surprise. Perhaps we were all a little slow to react to new consumer behaviours, ploughing far too much faith into traditional viewing habits that we thought were here to stay because hey, binge-watching and a total lack of channel brand loyalty is probably just a phase, or at least only exciting to a select few early adopters.
- We get it, Netflix is disruptive, and you don't need to be Warren Buffet to understand what happened. What we want to highlight here is some growing evidence of market correction - and question whether the sustainability of today's TV market is even possible. We all need to think about fresh ideas on how we sell and market TV shows, but we don't all have to suffer in the wake of destruction either.
- Netflix buys more than $6bn of content per year, consistently outbidding TV networks for the best scripts and formats. It paid off - 91 Emmy nominations, second only to HBO, the cable channel that is synonymous with TV awards. This, of course, raises the very valid question of sustainability - its cash flow deficit sits at $2bn, compared to $1.7bn last year. It did, however, add 3.7m non-US subscribers in the first quarter of 2017. This is a big gamble that's rocking the whole market. Everyone else has to make a profit on their shows, Netflix is happy to run at a loss in the hope that subscriber churn remains low - investing now, throwing everything out of whack, to grow its brand.
- But we are at the peak. Earlier this month Netflix announced it's hiking prices by a dollar to $10.99 a month for new users in Canada, then the same for existing users a few weeks later.
- Disney has just said it would remove its content from Netflix, and then launch its own direct-to-consumer service. They're not the first, and certainly won't be the last. While these single subscription-based services are cheap compared to cable and satellite package subscriptions, Netflix will see competition as more mainstream media take to streaming.By breaking it down and realising it's not just the content that's part of its success, which we've just highlighted as unsustainable anyway, there's still the threat that streaming services have totally redefined how audiences think about linear TV and advertising. There are three reasons, therefore, which if we look at separately, show the mammoth can be tamed.
- High-quality content
- Streaming on demand
- No adverts
The first one isn't sustainable for the current subscription price. Consumers will either see a drop in quality or a hike in prices. The second two are replaceable, as we're seeing with Disney. - Cable cutting is very much a thing. Gone are the days where we pay £60 a month to watch 2% of the available content - paying for an inflexible bundle that viewers are simply no longer prepared to accept. We lived with it previously as the means by which content arrived was via the provider of the bundle, be that a satellite or cable, but the internet removes our reliance on such technology an gives us more choice. While we still might spend £60 a month per household on TV, it'll be made up of all our favourite subscriptions, Netflix, HBO, ITV Hub and Disney for example.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2017/06/13/netflix-is-now-bigger-than-cable-tv/#1dbe21ed158b
- Netflix has, for the first time, surpassed cable in total subscribers according to Leichtman Research. US cable companies have 48.61 million subscribers while Netflix has just hit 50.85 million. The numbers don't count minor cable networks, which could in themselves amount to 5% of total cable customers.
- For many this won't be a surprise. Let's be honest, with Netflix having doubled its subscriber base - adding 27 million subs - over the last five years there was always going to come a time when it beat other services.
- And the good news for cable is that this isn't having a massively detrimental effect on their numbers either. While cable subs are down by 4 million in the same five years that Netflix has seen huge growth, that's not a massive drop off. It's also worth bearing in mind that cable TV makes up only 50% of total TV viewership in pay TV. That said, Q1 2017 shows a net loss in subscriptions while Q1 2016 saw cable grow a little.
- Satellite TV is doing okay, with around 38 million subscribers. Dish Network added 318,000 customers in Q1 with Direct TV stalling with gains that didn't outpace customer loses. Satellite is still growing faster than cable though.
- Faster still though are the internet-delivered services like Sling TV and Direct TV now which have added 350,000 in Q1. These services now have 1.7 million customers between them, and it's likely that this segment will continue to see growth as customers move away from cable TV.
- In total there are 93,319,187 subscribers to cable, satellite and internet streaming services in the US, which account for 95% of pay TV viewers. Netflix certainly isn't going to hit 100m US subscriptions anytime soon, and it's likely that it will hit a wall of some sort eventually. But if the service continues to improve and offer diverse programming it's likely that customers will feel as I do - that it's worth the modest monthly fee to have access to a library of great content.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/16/is-golden-age-tv-over-netflix-shows-cable-television
- There has never been a better time to be a couch potato: an endless stream of shows, old and new, delivered online without pricey cable or satellite packages. Critics have called it TV’s golden age, but some analysts say “peak television” is coming to an end.
- Money is the root of TV’s problems. In the US, where the TV economy is headquartered, TV and internet access costs two to three times what it does in the UK, and networks are in a tug-of-war with Americans, who are increasingly shredding steep cable bills in favor of Netflix and streaming services. This summer, many networks became locked in all-out legal battles with cash-strapped cable companies, with multibillion-dollar distribution deals at stake to fund those networks’ huge programming budgets.
- Executives are planning for a less luxurious future, in which TV shows may be briefer, lower-budget and filled with the kind of product-placement ads that audiences hate and advertisers pay for. Worse still, the company that started much of the trouble may soon confront flaws in its own business model.
- Netflix needs the money that increased scale would provide, in part, to pay top dollar for shows such as Arrested Development and Lost. In January, it told investors it owed $10.9bn in TV show licenses alone, with $4.7bn of that due this year. After that, almost the entire balance is due before the end of 2018.
- Netflix will have to keep buying reruns at what will almost certainly be increasing rates if it wants to retain its users, and the companies selling those shows are now in a tight spot too – largely thanks to the ad-free Netflix model
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