There are now more people watching Netflix than all of the top Cable Tv subscribers combined. This should come as no surprise as even those with a cable TV seem to have it for the namesake and don’t actually use it much. Perhaps, they’re waiting on more people to cut the cable before they do it themselves.
The numbers speak for themselves
By the end of March 2017, there were 48.6 million subscribers of cable TV and 50.9 million subscribers of Netflix. The data comes from Statistics and Leichtman Research Group. Netflix competitor, Hulu, had over 12 million subscribers and if we were to account for that then online streaming seems to be winning by a large margin over cable TV.
This also seems pretty logical if you look at the costs of cable TV and that of Netflix. In the US, a monthly Netflix subscription costs $9.99 while a cable TV subscription with major TV channels can cost $69.03 for a month. That’s a vast difference and a significant amount of money saved every month. Also, if you cut the cable, you would not be missing out much with all the online streaming services available on-demand these days.
Netflix is no King of the Hill, yet!
However, you shouldn’t be expecting your neighbor to take down his TV dish from his rooftop anytime soon. The Netflix subscriber base still falls largely behind the pay TV operators. An approximate 95% of US subscribers are reliant on pay TV and it has a staggering base of 93.3 million subscribers as of first quarter of 2017.
You might have also heard that Amazon Prime Video, which is significantly cheaper than Netflix, is giving Netflix a run for its money as more and more people are becoming aware of it but it doesn’t have nearly as much collection in movies and TV series as Netflix.
Netflix, in the past, tried to enter the real world market but, after that venture didn’t turn out to be as successful, decided that it wouldn’t enter that market and would remain online only with some DVD renting options.
It would be interesting to see whether or not that is an industry that can be revived or not in the age of streaming.
It is estimated that Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and other online streaming services will be competing for the entertainment space and topple cable in revenue. Only-for-streaming cinema is also on the rise while Netflix original series has been a thing for a while and they’re as mainstream as TV series and movies.
