There was a time when our lives did not revolve around television series that much. But in the present situation, the world of television has made great progress with various jaw-dropping projects which have made us addicted towards them. This is one of the main reasons for the transition of television from traditional form to online streaming form. Most of us want to have access to our favorite series from anywhere at our convenient time which has been made possible by the concept of online television like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
According to a statistical study made by the famous author of Wall Street Journal, it has been seen that Americans, recently have incremented their web video streaming to 11 hours per month which was around 7 per year previously. Aly Thomson also mentioned that in Canada, 16% of the inhabitants have stopped paying for subscriptions for traditional television.
The Main Audiences of Online Television?
The online streaming television concept is generally very popular among younger people and also to those who have the availability of smartphones since most of the online movie platforms come in the mobile application format. It has also been noticed that between the year 2014 and 2015 traditional television viewing among the age group of 18 to 24 have declined a lot as most of them favors watching their favorite series online.
Why Online Television Affecting Traditional Television?
Studies have shown that until the year of 2011, Americans within the age group of 18 to 24 were watching traditional or broadcast television about 24 hours per week. By the year 2016, this number has fallen to 15 hours a week and the main reason for this is the online television. Though it has also been stated that people who are a little aged are still loyal to the traditional TV to some extent but it is the younger generation who are migrating their interest to online TV platforms like that of Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu and among which Netflix is the most popular.
One of the main reasons behind such drastic change is that online television provides all types of series at once and one can also watch it whenever they want as they have the mobile app facilities as well. Presently this platform has made its way to 50% of the household.
How Traditional Television Being Affected By Online Television?
One of a major platform for online streaming is Netflix. It has been seen that in recent year, the amount of Netflix users have increased to 53% which was previously only 26% in 2011. The video on demand service from Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix now have a household subscription of 64% among which 51% users stream these networks monthly but it was not the same scenario in previous years when the subscription rate was 57% and the streaming rate was 48%.
According to a report, American online News has planned to shut down their Television news. In the year, 2011 only 6% adults would make use of Netflix streaming while in this year it has raised to almost 23%. Another study has shown that 81% of the Netflix users have been streaming it on TV sets and also about 58% of the subscribers of cable network have been using video on demand.
But it has also noted that all traditional broadcast system is not getting affected. It has been noticed in 2015 that the total amount of viewers of networks like Time Warner, AMC, Scripps Network Interactive and discovery communications have incremented. Although there has been a fall of viewing percentage for certain networks like Disney (about 5%), Viacom (about 15%), NBCUniversal (about 5%) and A+E Network has been declined to 15%.
The Fate of Traditional Television?
Yes, there has been a great change in the television industry over the past years. With the advent of the online streaming facility, the traditional method of television viewing has taken a major hit. But there is a certain factor that has added value to the traditional TV. People who belong from an older age group still prefer to watch movies in the old way. It has been seen that the uses of online streaming television is 60% among those who are within the age group of 35 to 44 and it lowers to 54% among the age group of 45 to 54, 37% for 55 to 64 and 23% for those who are 65 and above. So we can see that a large amount of the population still prefers the traditional version so in the future traditional television viewing though has threats from online television viewing but it is yet to cease.
Conclusion
Online streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu have made their mark in the television industry in a vast sense in recent years with the facility of mobile applications that are favored by tech-savvy younger people but the form of traditional television is still a popular choice among the older age group.
