Beech Tree News Network

Once upon a time, there were only three channels: ABC, CBS and NBC.  It was that way for decades.  Then came FOX in 1987 but I already told you about all that in past columns.  The three soon became 300 with the advent of cable and so on and so forth.  

For more than four decades, PBS and Sesame Street were inseparable.  Though older episodes still air on PBS, the show moved to HBO in 2015.  Four years later, it moved again to HBO Max.  Steve Youngwood is the CEO of Sesame Workshop.  Youngwood says today’s toddlers are very sophisticated consumers.  “They don’t understand tune into this time or that time.  They expect the content to fit their schedule and their lifestyle”.

During the pandemic, there was an influx of viewers.  The streaming wars heated up between HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV +, HULU and Paramount +.  Viewing is spread between many different platforms.  People still watch news and sports live.  Everything else, however, is fair game.  To major advertisers, catching people around the tv isn’t just about togetherness.  If a bunch of people are watching the same thing at the same time, those same people are going to see that same car ad on tv.  

More choice for subscribers means more challenges for streaming services.  So far, the big loser in this game is Netflix.  This year, Netflix announced that its era of seemingly endless growth was over.  Trying to reduce costs while confronting declining subscriber growth, they laid off another 300 employees.  That’s in addition to the first quarter of the year, where they lost subscribers for the first time in a decade.  The company, which had a net loss of 200,000 subscribers in its first quarter, has been facing down a lack of must-see content on its platform as competitors continue to expand.

Streamers are looking for ways to cut back, as they’ve found there’s a limit to streaming services customers will pay for.  The average viewer has between 3-4 subscriptions.  Remember the whole promise of “finally, we wouldn’t have to watch ads anymore.  That worked for a while but, thanks to these services raising prices for their non-ad tier, we’re back to watching 2-3 short ads.  It’s not that bad when you consider that your streaming service plan is less money.  So what if you have to put up with an ad or two? 

Ad-supported options can be cheaper or even free, like Amazon’s new Freevee and Paramount’s Pluto tv.  “The old television model was so good and generated so much cash.  And the new model is so much harder to make a profit on because the cost of adding one more subscriber is so much higher”, says Alex Weprin, writer for the Hollywood Reporter.  (CBS Sunday Morning)

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=mKunfqpORoOhkgFd...