Media’s Big 2019 Challenge: Building New Netflixes While Consumers Keep Cutting Cords

Netflix’s amazing success over the past decade has been so significant that many others are hoping to repeat it. Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav vows a new streaming outlet that brings golf content to overseas markets will become a “Netflix for golf.” 21st Century Fox recently launched a SVOD service for “superfans” of Fox News Channel called Fox Nation. Executives there don’t mind if you liken the product to a “Netflix for conservatives.”Behind the impetus for some – not all – of the glitzy new services is a gloomy old problem: As media companies work to build new connections through broadband streaming, they continue to lose links to consumers via cable and satellite subscriptions.The phenomenon known as “cord cutting” became severe in the third quarter, according to data from Kagan, a market research firm that is part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Satellite broadcasters lost 726,000 subscribers, the industry’s worst quarter on record. Combined with cable and telecom distributors, the sector shed 1.2 million video subscribers in the three-year period ending September 30, 2018. At Pivotal Research, analysts have predicted 2019 pay-TV losses will “continue at a similar pace to ’17 and ’18 as consumers continue to rebel against the rising price of PayTV amidst the continued emergence of cheap entertainment alternatives.” Satellite TV, they said, will face continued erosion “outside of rural areas. Expect another ugly year in 2019.”