Netflix vs. Cable … or Netflix on Cable?
With over 44 million customers across the globe and a stock price hovering somewhere above 450 at the time of this writing, it’s safe to say that Netflix is the strongest over-the-top (OTT) content provider. With an array of television shows, movies, documentaries and more on its network, the company appears to be in prime position to challenge the security of traditional cable providers.While the OTT service can be said to rival traditional television, it can also be said to complement it. After all, Netflix doesn’t (yet?) offer things like nightly news or sporting events, and unless you’re watching original shows like “House of Cards” or “Orange is the New Black,” you’ll have to wait at least a few months before the latest season of a show gets added—if it gets added at all.
So as the old saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them, and it appears Netflix might very well do just that. According to reports, the leading OTT provider is in talks with pay-TV operators to determine whether to add Netflix to the cable bundle as an app available on set-top boxes. If such a deal is made, consumers wouldn’t have to switch television inputs to access Netflix on devices like Rokus.
There are over 100 million pay-TV-watching households in the United States. Of Netflix’s customers, about 30 million are American. These numbers alone might very well prove that cord-cutting is more of an idea than an actual trend. Sure, there are undoubtedly customers who have decided they don’t want to pay for cable anymore and Netflix is the way to go for entertainment purposes. But by and large, that is not the case.
With Netflix entering into the content-creation arena with its original programming, is it really that hard to see the OTT company offering some iteration of its services a la HBO and HBO GO?