Executive Briefing
Netflix and the streaming wars, checkpoint 01
A promising start.
By Dan Frommer on Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 7:00 am
As the global TV industry continues to shift toward internet streaming and away from cable and satellite distribution, one big question is whether Netflix will become the world’s single dominant streaming service or simply one of many popular services.
We won’t know what sort of competition the fabled “streaming wars” will really look like for a while. But Netflix reported (pdf) its financial results Tuesday, its first since Disney+ and Apple TV+, two new high-profile streaming services, launched in the US late last year.
And while Netflix reported “low membership growth” in the US and Canada — which it blamed on recent price increases and “competitive launches” in the US — it also showed no signs of imminent collapse. (It also never hurts a giant tech company these days to be able to argue it has new competition.)
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