Streaming Giants Make Large-Scale Layoffs

Both Linear And Streaming See Losses And Layoffs

The holiday season has unfortunately brought news of large-scale layoffs at companies ranging from CNN to AMC to Roku, along with a dawning recognition that perhaps the path from linear to streaming is not going to be strewn with rainbows and unicorns and that good old Jeff Zucker was onto something all those years ago when he issued his famous comment about trading linear dollars for digital dimes.

There’s also the thing that nobody seems to want to talk about, the industry’s own Voldemort.

Which is that streaming is not, in and of itself, a bad or unprofitable business. It’s that without all those billions (with a “b”) that media companies made from carriage and retrans fees, it’s never going to be anywhere near as profitable as traditional broadcast and cable.

Ever…?[READ MORE]

Churn Picks Up

In unsurprising development number two this week, streaming services are experiencing a record amount of churn.

I say “unsurprising” because what exactly did anyone think was going to happen when there are so many fairly similar options out there all vying for a limited amount of time and money.

At some point it was going to dawn on viewers that “hey, I have not watched this streaming service in three months so why am I paying them ten dollars a month?”

Which is not to say that they won’t resubscribe at some point.

Just that people are becoming more judicious about their subscription dollars, especially as fears of a recession swirl.

Still, it presents a major problem, especially for the ad-supported subscription services, e.g. all of them…?[READ MORE]

READ THE FULL WEEK IN REVIEW?ON TVREV

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Cassillo's Corner: Netflix ‘Late’ To Ads, Or Not Paying Attention?

This week,?Reed Hastings said?that Netflix avoided ads for so long because it was “too focused on Facebook and Google” and that he’d failed to understand the rapid migration of 18-to-49 year-olds away from linear TV. He also mentioned that he wishes they’d jumped into advertising a few years ago.

• That’s fine, but it seems to admit not paying attention to the business Netflix is in (streaming and television), since coverage has highlighted declining linear viewership for 18-to-49 year-olds for the last decade – in large part due to streaming services LIKE NETFLIX gobbling up minutes, so it’s hard to believe Netflix was unaware of those dynamics.
• Ultimately, these serve as excuses for the real reasons Netflix is only jumping into advertising now: declining stock price and plateauing growth.
• For whatever reason Netflix was slow on the uptake, it’ll need ads to work everywhere, but especially in emerging economies where disposable income for streaming services is scarce.

?– John Cassillo

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Landscape

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• Netflix Launches 9 More Mobile Games, Including GameLoft’s Farmville Clone?[TechCrunch]