Netflix, the disruptor

Taken from
How Netflix Built its House of Cards (and Changed TV Forever)


08 SEP 2016 COLD CALL PODCAST
with ANITA ELBERSE : Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration

There are four major groups: 

1. The broadcast channels, the ABCs and the NBCs and the CBSs. 

2. There are basic cable networks, cable networks that are part of your cable bundle but that would still carry some advertising, so they make their money partly from that advertising and partly from the cable fees that consumers pay. 

3. There are premium cable networks, the third group, HBO and Showtime are examples of that, and they don't run advertising. They solely depend on the subscription fees that we as consumers pay. 

4. Then the fourth group, which is obviously a major focus in this case, are these online services, Netflix, and Amazon has come up strongly in recent years. They introduced binge viewing. They, too, depend on subscription fees, but it's quite a different experience to be watching these online services.

They (Netflix) certainly were very innovative and they were extremely gutsy. I think even now if you look at the decision, it's not clear that this was necessarily the safest or the most logical decision, but it certainly was very gutsy. As I said early on, I think it became a pivotal moment in television history, so in that sense they may deserve that stamp of being a disruptor.