Nickelodeon Down, Netflix Up - Viacom Doesn't See Connection
posted Sunday May 6, 2012 by Scott Ertz
Since Netflix and Hulu started streaming content, both new and old, to your computer, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii and more, for a very low cost, the future of appointment television has been bleak. In fact, Piltch Point host and Online Editorial Director of LAPTOP Magazine, Avram Piltch listed it as one of the 15 modern technologies his son will never use. While those of us with computers know what is obviously coming, there are others who do not understand it.
Viacom, the company who took on YouTube, and has famously not understood the Internet, feels that it has had no impact on their flagship kids network, Nickelodeon. Nick has experienced a MASSIVE drop-off in viewership over the past few years, especially over the past 12 months, but this 30% loss has nothing to do with Netflix, according to CEO Philippe Dauman.
What does he attribute the lack of success to? We have his explanation after the break.
Dauman told investors on the quarterly earnings report,
The Nick issue is complicated. There are ratings measurement issues. There certainly has been some compelling programming on some of our competitors, which we can clearly address. We will do what we always do: We will research our audiences, we'll review our pipeline, add more diversity in our programming.
This is clearly a man who does not have a Netflix subscription. For anyone who does, they know that Netflix has been working hard to increase their kids library, and they have done an incredible job of it. A kid can keep themselves entertained for months with the current offerings without ever seeing the same thing twice. There is no way that doesn't take a major tole on Nick's ratings.
If Viacom management is going to continue to focus on the wrong aspect of their failures, the network that my generation grew up on will soon be a thing of the past. Hopefully their bravado is only to the investors and, behind closed doors, they are terrified of the Netflix beast and are actively working to combat it.
