The only viewing market is in its infancy and yet Netflix isn’t sitting on its laurels here. Most of us are fairly busy day to day and even forget to Tivo or record our favorite programs from time to time and end up watching them on the broadcast network website a day or more after the episodes air.
Tonight, I was pleasantly surprised to see Netflix had NBCs “Heroes” Season 2 already available online. Normally you have to wait for the dvd box set of a season to be available in order to watch the episodes online with a service like Netflix, yet here they are. This is revolutionary.
This tells me several things about not just Netflix but about the industry. First, networks are realizing the need to reach as broad an audience as possible and that audience isn’t necessarily represented by the Nielsen families anymore and Second, that you can offer first run (in this case a TV show) content without losing money on the broadcast, or in the case of a theatrical release, losing money on the distribution of films to traditional theaters.
This is truly a step in the right direction to giving consumers what they really want. The option to see a film or tv show how and when they want to. Consumers want to watch what you have to offer but can’t commit to ridiculous time slots on television that don’t work with modern schedules anymore.
I think the need for networks to capitalize on specific markets through broadcast shows is over. The money is being made in product placement now not in commercial slots because everyone skips over the commercials unless they have some entertainment value. I am much more willing to sit through a 30 second ad by one company than I am to sit through 3.5-5 minutes of crappy ads about products I have no interest in buying. Online advertisements are incredibly cheap compared to the broadcast model and you have a captive audience because the ad is built into the software that delivers the content…users can’t skip it. Now as long as the commercial break is short and specific there isn’t a problem, just don’t abuse it.
Kudos to Netflix for leading the way in online content delivery for networks and film studios! Did I mention you should be buying the stock aggressively? Buy Buy Buy.
