The Great Binge Case Study

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The Great Binge: The Rise of Streaming Services The relatively short and recent history of streaming services To understand the rise of these services, it would perhaps be best to start with a history of the largest and most popular of all services: Netflix. Netflix was founded in 1997 by software engineers Reed Hastings and Marc Rudolph, beginning as a rental service for the newly invented format of digital video disc or DVD using the internet to order them online and send through the mail. 1999 saw the still young company adopting the monthly subscription model and allowing unlimited rentals for a single monthly rate. In 2000, the company was losing money with only about three-hundred thousand subscribers in total. The same year saw Hastings
Netflix is not an ad-based business, profiting entirely from subscription fees. Netflix found its success by discovering that audiences would be willing to pay a set fee, at the time of typing eight dollars per month, in order to watch television programs or movies uninterrupted by annoying and constant advertisement. Reed Hastings, in his interview with the New Yorker, compared the Netflix option to reading a book, with all chapters or episodes available from the get go, leaving the pace at which consumption takes place up entirely to the viewer, be it an episode at a time or a “binge”.In a way, television is not so much changing as it is being replaced. The digital option is preferable to viewers who increasingly feel programs being offered at immovable set times is a way of the past. The beginnings of television ironically appear to mirror the rise of streaming services. Television networks like NBC, CBS, and ABC began their runs as radio stations which were granted permits for their stations under the condition that they could not charge viewers and thus they were paid by advertisers for screen time. And yet, television was not simply a retread of radio, rather, television was a window to another world, a world defined by Lucille Ball, quiz shows, a general good
People have been crying the death of network television for over twenty-five years and, though new outlets are being made available, advertisers appreciate the mass audience that still can only be delivered consistently through a broadcast network. Commercial advertising accounts for about fifty percent all total revenue, but the other fifty percent comes from licensing deals for syndication on cable and streaming on digital platforms. In a few years, however, this is liable to change with network television gone and viewing habits transition entirely to streaming services and digital options. Though it could be said that television has managed the transition to digital better than books or music, it is quickly catching

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