Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Looking at Netflix in Germany and It's Affect

 As of the 2nd quarter of 2020 (into the heart of Covid-19)....Netflix had around 8.2-million subscribers in Germany....out of a 83-million total population).  That's roughly a 15-percent growth over the previous year.  

Numbers?  From Comparitech.

The present numbers going into 2021?  I would imagine it's fairly close to 9-million.

Hurting the public TV sector and the commercial networks in Germany?  Well....yeah.

If you asked most younger Germans (say between 15 and 25 years old)....they would admit that they rarely if ever....watch public TV, and commercial TV usage is on the decline.  

Finding Germans over the age of fifty who have a subscription?  It's probably more of a rare thing.

I've had a subscription now for two years and would readily admit that I probably view ten hours a week of TV shows/movies, and more than half are NOT US products.  

Yeah, Netflix has been smart and acquired European and Asian products, inserting the German/English text, and I've been shocked over the quality there.  

Hurting the advertising profit for German commercial TV?  No one says much, and there's only speculation.  For the public TV management folks, there's serious worry about the next decade and how younger viewers will force the TV tax discussion to be painful (perhaps even cutting it by a massive amount).

Adding to this discussion....Sky and Amazon are getting heavily into this, along with a couple of other streaming video sites.

A decade in the future?  I just don't see public TV surviving in its current state, and the German commercial TV networks are probably going to merge into a lesser number to survive. 

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