Netflix dictates the pace, and the others try to keep up with it. The announced revolution has taken place: the giant of streaming on demand can now count on 75 million subscribers, 32 of which outside the borders of the United States. Even if the expansion in the rest of the world has known hitches here and there, Netflix has increasingly become a phenomenon of custom, a platform capable not only of changing the consumption of television entertainment, but also the consumer.
Streaming on demand, which gives the viewer the opportunity to freely create his own schedule, is a road from which it seems increasingly difficult to go back, so much so as to push various players in world entertainment to take the same path, at a time when broadband technology will increasingly shift the axis of television consumption towards the web and smart TVs. The real Netflix effect is this: having created a new consumer, with new desires.
Mediaset and Vivendi
These are the reasons that push two giants such as Mediaset and Vivendi to launch the challenge to Netflix, following its model. The passage of Mediaset Premium to the group led by Bollorè is, in fact, only the beginning, because the two companies are working on the alliance that will lead them to give life to the European version of the on-demand streaming service, as early as next September , when from their union, and from the union with Telefonica, a new platform should come to life.
The platform, which will be able to count on the current catalogs of the respective on-demand services (CanalPlay and Watchever by Vivendi, Infinity by Mediaset and Yomvi by Telefonica) will be joined, and this is the most significant novelty, by the formation of a single production company for contents, exactly as happens with Netflix, which made the real leap forward when it launched into the production of TV series such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.
The idea of Vivendi and Mediaset, in this case, would be to work side by side, in the production system, with a Hollywood major like Fox or Warner, with which negotiations are in full swing. According to rumors, there would be three types of content to be launched: films, possibly with US stars; the TV series of about forty minutes per episode and the dramas of about ten episodes for two hours of duration, on the model, to give a lucky example, of "Montalbano".
Netflix
Netflix, for its part, does not seem to fear the competition. In fact, the president and founder of the group Reed Hastings seems to be convinced that the possibilities of the market are still expanding: "We have a great response from the public and even if there are many people who are making an effort to oppose us, we are not worried ; in America many entrepreneurs such as Amazon, Comcast, Hulu or YouTube itself are doing well. We grow and they grow."
In fact, the US company can count on having dictated the timing of this revolution, and on the belief that it is the best in this field: "there is no doubt that the competition is ruthless and is doing everything possible to create an interesting schedule but we we are Netflix”.
In Italy, however, the numbers of the US company, we are talking about two hundred thousand subscribers, are even lower than expected, also due to a rights issue which means that the two flagship series produced by Netflix (the aforementioned House of Cards and Orange is The New Black) are not available in the catalogue.
“Unfortunately – Hastings explained – House of Cards will remain out of our Italian bouquet, but we are working on it, while for Orange is The New Black we are getting closer step by step and at least for the fourth season we will also broadcast it. Let's say we're happy but not completely."
The objectives of the company, which has also had to cope with the limited initial success of its landing in an important market such as the Brazilian one, however remain ambitious: Netflix, in fact, aims at the largest market in the world, the Chinese one. “We're not in China yet – Hastings said – and we'll be really happy when we get there too. We are doing our best by investing a lot of effort but for the licenses in that country it is really complicated. In addition there is a whole broadband work that still needs to be done”.
The other
The Netflix model has deeply shaken the universe of television, like a telluric wave that threatens to sink the less stable constructions.
La rush to on-demand streaming, like the gold rush in the mid-nineteenth century, involves everyone. From the Rai, which studies a platform to which customers can access via smartphone, tablet or TV connected to the Internet to enjoy its programs with a subscription and a simple registration, Sky, via telephone companies, such as Telecom, increasingly at the crossroads which will have to decide whether to transform itself into a media company.
The secret to replicating a model like Netflix's well, however, is to understand it thoroughly. Streaming is not enough, content is needed, content that the viewer cannot find anywhere else (at least not legally). This Mediaset and Vivendi seem to have understood this.
