By Candice-Rose Gagnon [1]
BELLEVILLE – Loyalist students say they prefer to watch their favourite television on online streaming channels like Netflix, rather than being restricted to traditional television.
Students are following a trend international analysts say North Americans are switching off the tube and moving toward an online TV world according to a CBC report [2].
Online streaming services like Netflix [3], Shomi [4] and Crave [5] are platforms to watch television shows and movies on the internet. Those web-based services are gaining popularity.
Analysts from the CBC report say viewership of traditional television has dropped 12 per cent for the eighth consecutive time in the United States.
Accounting student Matt Keller is a big baseball fan. He tries to follow the Tampa Bay Rays [6] as much as he can. While he watches the Rays play against the Blue Jays from time to time, he feels he has little choice when he wants to watch the team outside of Florida on TV.
“My favourite sports team doesn’t get played on TV very often so I have to go online to watch every game,” Keller says.
He still watches traditional television, but not as much as online. Keller says he watches more content online because of the convenience.
“I can actually pick what I want, instead of relying on what is on cable,” he said.
Netflix subscriber Joshua LeRoux says he tends to watch Netflix more than standard television. The first-year Community and Justice Services student says he likes the versatility of Netflix.
“I can watch it on my laptop anywhere, and set it up like a TV so it is very accessible through online services,” said LeRoux.
But some students say don’t even have time for television anymore.
Accounting student Seggie Montgomery says she doesn’t watch a lot of television because she is too busy doing other things.
“I do a lot of homework. I skate in the winter time. I do a lot of extracurricular activities,” she said “I have never streamed anything online but I have experienced Netflix through other people. I find it very convenient. Really easy to use, I would use it if I did watch more TV.”
Audience segmentation is nothing new for the television industry says Television and New Media Production professor Paul Papadopoulos.
He explained with the introduction of the 500 cable channels in the 1990s broadcasters worried over viewership numbers.
“The audience didn’t get smaller then. The audience was still the same audience, just diluting the audience to now narrow casted channels. So you saw decline in numbers of individual channels,” he says.
“The reality of that time was, (the audience) were actually watching more TV, just spread out. They weren’t so dedicated to those few channels they were dedicated to before. They had all sorts of choices,” Papadopoulos says.
It wasn’t until recently that television viewership has declined and that was because of the audience demands, he says.
People want to be entertained. If the audience isn’t, they will look else where, or flip the channel he says.
Online broadcasters have become popular because of the convenience Papadopoulos says.
Accessing shows and movies at any time is one of the reasons why he cancelled his cable subscription a few years ago.
Cord cutting is forgoing expensive television services.
More and more people are doing it he says.
Broadcasters may not be happy, but television content creators like the students in in the Television and New Media program are saying the old model of television simply does not work says Papadopoulos.
“Content creators are saying no, there is more content to be made, it’s just not being watched by the way (the broadcasters) programmed it to be watched,” he said.
As for what is next, Papadopoulos said he thinks the industry needs to adapt to the audience.
“Good riddance to the broadcasters. Why should we (the audience) bow down to them,” he said.