- Given all the faces you see glued to computers, tablets, and cell phones, you might think that people watch much less television than they used to. You would be wrong. According to Nielsen, Americans on average consume nearly five hours of TV every day, a number that has actually gone up since the 1990s. That works out to about 34 hours a week and almost 1,800 hours per year, more than the average French person spends working. The vast majority of that time is still spent in front of a standard television, watching live or prescheduled programming. Two decades into the Internet revolution, despite economic challenges and cosmetic upgrades, the ancient regime survives, remaining both the nation’s dominant medium and one of its most immutable
So… the entertainment industry has known all of this to be fact for more than ten years. We all know that television is going to belong to sports and variety shows and the rest of it will go online. There are only a few things I think are worth pointing out: 1) Netflix is a player, not the player. If you want to see democratization, you need only look at Roku or a Chromebox or any smart TV. Apple started renting TV shows and movies about the time Netflix Streaming kicked off; Hulu was a few months behind, Amazon a few months behind that. Now every network has their own streaming service, either standalone or boxed with something else. Almost every studio does. It isn't really about "networks" any more, it's about access to content… and Netflix is actively shooting itself in the foot by deprecating their streams to Roku (Hulu isn't, Amazon isn't, Crackle isn't). 2) The kids don't watch TV anymore anyway. That doesn't mean there isn't "water cooler" talk. I'll chat with people about The Wire, even though it went off the air more than six years ago. Most of the people following Breaking Bad did not start Season 1 on AMC, they started Season 1 on Netflix years later. "Event TV" is over, for the most part, but "shared experience" will be here forever. You can still talk to someone about the first time they heard Dark Side of the Moon and that album has been out 40 years now. Parents still talk about showing their kids the reveal at the end of Empire Strikes Back and that movie's been out for 30. 3) The article skims over the absolutely thunderous implication of streaming video: ads are going away. Yeah, you get them on Hulu, yeah you get them on some of the network feeds, but by and large, we'll watch content we paid for directly. My daughter will grow up never really understanding advertising. The merchandisers will have to find her some other way. Not gonna mince words: I'd shoot Madison Avenue in the face myself to ensure that future. The fact that it comes as a byproduct of the break-up of five massive media conglomerates is simply delicious.
But you are right, you don't "watch" NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon etc, you "use" them. That's why they're getting in to the content business, right? My wife and I are about to finish the series "Lost" and we need a new one. I'm enticed by Orange is the New Black. -You've seen it, right? Thoughts?and Netflix is actively shooting itself in the foot by deprecating their streams to Roku (Hulu isn't, Amazon isn't, Crackle isn't)
What do you mean by this? I have a Roku box and I stream both Crackle and Amazon from it as well as Netflix. I haven't used Hulu since their show The Morning After ceased being hosted by one of my best childhood friends.
Netflix sends their Roku streams out through the Back 40. Try it - streaming through an XBox or a Wii or your computer is vastly better than streaming through the Roku. It's a known issue with no solution. You can trick it for a while with DNS hijacks but Netflix is literally fucking Roku over. OINB is addictively entertaining. I found it to be quite trivial initially, but it grows on you. FWIW, my vicarious experiences through Youngluck line up pretty succinctly with the "prisonisms" in OINB. Amazon Prime has Good Wife. Good Wife is a hell of a series. And if you're looking for something long and involving but without the primordial suckitude of Lost, The Wire is dizzope.
Yeah, I think we should give the Wire another shot. For whatever reason, we started and quit after the first season. It had nothing to do with quality, we just didn't pick it up again. I'll pose OINB, The Wire and Good Wife all to my wife and let her pick. Nice to have some options though. What do you mean that Netflix sends their Roku streams out through the Back 40? We watch LOST via Netflix via Roku.