“The TV landscape, in fact, has never been more competitive than it is today. There’s never been more competition for creators, for consumer attention, for advertising and subscription dollars,” said Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos on the company earnings call yesterday, per The Hollywood Reporter. “TV is not what we grew up on. TV is now just about everything. The Oscars and the NFL are on YouTube. Networks are simulcasting the Super Bowl on linear TV and streaming. Amazon owns MGM, Apple is competing for Emmys and Oscars, and Instagram is coming next.”
Of course, a good bit of this, like Apple (and Netflix) competing for awards, is not new. But Instagram is apparently now enough of a competitor that Netflix will expand a short-form video feed on its mobile app. Said co-CEO Greg Peters on the same call, per TechCrunch, “You can imagine us bringing more clips based on new content types, like video podcasts.” Netflix has recently made a significant investment in its video podcast offerings, so we suppose this connection tracks. As Sarandos added, “So we all compete with them in every dimension, for talent, for ad dollars, for subscription dollars, and for all forms of content… More broadly, we compete for people’s attention across an even wider set of options that include streaming, broadcast, cable, gaming, social media, and big tech video platforms.” Hopefully they’re still including movie theaters somewhere in there!
