In the great lottery of life, no one is totally in control of their destiny. The reflection is also valid for the business world.
Reed Hastings, the brilliant boss of Netflix has not stopped repeating to anyone who will listen that television will perhaps die within 5 or 10 years. The concern for him is that Netflix might know exactly the same fate. Indeed, what Reed Hastings meant is that dad’s television is only watched by the “old” and that young people have been deserting it for a long time. And since young people are the adults of tomorrow, television will not only lose its audience, but also its revenue.
On the basis of this analysis, he is correct. Except that the boss of Netflix, but also that of Disney + and Amazon Prime discovers that young people are abandoning their on-demand film and video platforms. Clearly, they too are threatened by the “aging” of their audience. The latest figures on the subject are relentless. Whether in Great Britain, the United States, France or Germany, young people have been deserting these platforms for two years. Whose fault is it ? But especially on You Tube and TikTok. Today, these two social networks not only compete with dad’s television, but also with video-on-demand platforms. The stock market is upset: all these companies like Netflix and Disney+ are listed on the stock exchange, and investors are realizing that endless subscriber growth is a thing of the past. Young people are abandoning these platforms and only subscribing piecemeal. When a series interests them, they subscribe to watch it and then cancel their subscription. This is what explains why Netflix and Disney + are trying to plug this leak of subscribers, in particular by no longer making all the episodes of a series available at once.
In fact, Le Figaro notes that Netflix and Disney are taking inspiration from Dad’s TV with weekly airings of their hit shows like The Lord of the Rings and House of the Dragon. Beyond this factual response, it should also be noted that the TikTok formula is changing the creative codes of the audiovisual world. Younger consumers no longer want to watch long videos. Their attention span has gone in a few years from regarding ten minutes to… 13 seconds on average for video lovers on TikTok. The worst part is that this fight is unequal. Disney + and other Netflix spend billions of dollars to make original series or films, while the TikTok model costs its owners nothing in terms of content since it is the users themselves who produce the videos. It is no coincidence that everyone is trying to copy TikTok. Instagram launched Reels, You Tube launched shorts and Snapchat launched Spotlight. In short, it is Tik Tok, the latest comer, which today imposes its format on others.
As Richard Greenfield, a media industry analyst, puts it, TikTok is “the ultimate cure for boredom” today. And its only competitor today is our sleep.
Reed Hastings, the brilliant boss of Netflix has not stopped repeating to anyone who will listen that television will perhaps die within 5 or 10 years. The concern for him is that Netflix might know exactly the same fate. Indeed, what Reed Hastings meant is that dad’s television is only watched by the “old” and that young people have been deserting it for a long time. And since young people are the adults of tomorrow, television will not only lose its audience, but also its revenue. On the merits of this analysis, he is right. Except that the boss of Netflix, but also that of Disney + and Amazon Prime discovers that young people are abandoning their on-demand film and video platforms. Clearly, they too are threatened by the “aging” of their audience. The latest figures on the subject are relentless. Whether in Great Britain, the United States, France or Germany, young people have been deserting these platforms for two years. Whose fault is it ? But especially on You Tube and TikTok. Today, these two social networks not only compete with dad’s television, but also with video-on-demand platforms. The stock market is upset: all these companies like Netflix and Disney+ are listed on the stock exchange, and investors are realizing that endless subscriber growth is a thing of the past. Young people are abandoning these platforms and only subscribing piecemeal. When a series interests them, they subscribe to watch it and then cancel their subscription. This is what also explains why Netflix and Disney + are trying to plug this leak of subscribers, in particular by no longer making all the episodes of a series available at once. In fact, Le Figaro notes that Netflix and Disney are taking inspiration from Dad’s TV with weekly airings of their hit shows like The Lord of the Rings and House of the Dragon. Beyond this factual response, it should also be noted that the TikTok formula is changing the creative codes of the audiovisual world. Younger consumers no longer want to watch long videos. Their attention span has gone in a few years from regarding ten minutes to… 13 seconds on average for video lovers on TikTok. The worst part is that this fight is unequal. Disney + and other Netflix spend billions of dollars to make original series or films, while the TikTok model costs its owners nothing in terms of content since it is the users themselves who produce the videos. It is no coincidence that everyone is trying to copy TikTok. Instagram launched Reels, You Tube launched shorts and Snapchat launched Spotlight. In short, it is Tik Tok, the latest comer, which today imposes its format on others. As Richard Greenfield, a media industry analyst, puts it, TikTok is “the ultimate cure for boredom” today. And its only competitor today is our sleep.
