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There are So Many Streaming Options Cable is Starting to Look Good
“I don’t even have a TV,” my friend said to me after I asked about the Superbowl.
This is a common trend among young adults, but it doesn’t mean they’re not watching TV programs. Streaming has taken over. This means 13-inch laptops have replaced the 60-inch flat screens we fight over on Black Friday. The rise in streaming services has given us access to on-demand content like never before. This seems like a good thing, but services that were once cost-effective alternates to cable are now weighing more heavily on the wallet.
It all started with Netflix. Perhaps not the first streaming service, but they changed the climate of television with their on-demand services. Their main competitor in the streaming world was Hulu, then Amazon Prime to a lesser degree. Once these services started providing original content, customers started flocking to streaming and cutting the cord.
Streaming has become the future of content consumption, but TV streaming services have started to mimic the cable networks they sought to replace. Many shows are cutting ties with one service to stream exclusively on a different service. The prime example: Friends. The show is undoubtedly one of the most popular of all times, and Netflix spent $100 million to keep the show for 2019. Now, the show is moving to HBO Max (or one of the channels included in the upcoming bundle) in a move that cost $425 million for five years of exclusive streaming.
Can Streaming Win?
The streaming model can be profitable, and if we look at the music industry we see an industry recovering due to the existence of streaming. The music industry was seriously hurt by piracy, but streaming monetized the process of gaining unlimited access to music. Though physical sales can generate a greater profit for record labels, the impact of piracy was so extreme that record labels needed to rely on the reduced monetization of streaming to survive. But there’s one thing that separates the streaming of music and television: unlimited access. With music, you can get access to almost any song on either Spotify or Apple Music. There are only a few streaming hold outs and very few albums exclusive to specific services. Television streaming is the opposite. Each service has…
