People are watching less and less Television. Is it possible that streaming TV may be so desperate they pay for a viewing TV along with their services in say 20 years or even sooner?
People are watching less and less Television. Is it possible that streaming TV may be so desperate they pay for a viewing TV along with their services in say 20 years or even sooner?
No. This is capitalism. Executives would let their entire industry die before letting a single dollar of profit elude them. If less people watch TV, they just cut the budget of the shows they produce. They will never be desperate for you to stay.
I get what you’re saying and I mostly agree, but, they make that money through advertising, and if nobody’s watching, why would I pay to show my ads to nobody? If CBS starts streaming live on Netflix, they’d probably get more viewers.
Source: Sold advertising for the local paper, or at least tried to. Nobody reads the paper, and everybody knows it.
Doesn’t matter. If they lose all advertisers, they shutter the channel. And if all channels have been shut down, the industry has died. Which they would rather let happen than give up any profit by giving people free stuff.
And at some point, the execs cash their last bonus check, give the company to some poor intern, and fail upwards to a new industry.
Broadcast television ratings have been in freefall for at least a generation. They’ve just adjusted by making these shows a lot cheaper to make, including adding a lot of unscripted content.
I know this was discussed heavily when Jay Leno had his crappy show on at 9:30. It had terrible ratings, but it was cheap enough to make that NBC still made money even if it couldn’t charge as much for ads.