Netflix's Sarandos: TV Shows are 20% of DVD and 50% of Streaming

Ted Sarandos, Netflix's Chief Content Officer, speaking at the paidContent Entertainment conference, said that Netflix is no threat to cable TV, but is a complementary service. Sarandos also talked about the change in customer interest from DVD to streaming:

TV streaming is 50 percent: Sarandos reflected on how things have changed when it comes to doing deals. “It was almost four years ago that we started streaming content. We did the deals we could get—in other words, we got junk,” Sarandos said. “But that eventually led us away from movies and towards TV content. The outcome is that steaming TV content has become half of all the viewing hours on Netflix. TV has never been never more than 20 percent on DVD.”

Sarandos also confirmed that Netflix is not considering ads for streaming or on the website.

What percentage of your streaming viewing is TV and movies?

Comments

[Toffer]

I would guess that 80% of my streaming is TV whereas maybe 5% of my DVDs are TV series.

[FearNo1]

The vast majority of the streaming for me is TV shows, esp since they are normally in HD. I really have a hard time watching streamed SD content as the picture quality can be crappy during dark scenes.

[NoName]

I will only do TV on DVD if it's a show I'm dying to see. It is such a pain with the whole 3 episodes on each disc. TV is so much easier via streaming. Netflix would surely cut down shipping costs if ALL TV was available on streaming. :)

[Dusty T]

Most of my streaming is TV shows I would say 80% is tv shows. I also have one dedicated DVD slot to tv shows (stuff not streaming) and one dvd dedicated to movies (blu-ray mostly)

[Tomguy]

About 50% of what I stream is TV programs. Usually, it is series that I did not have access to when they originally aired.

I, too, prefer to stream TV programs, rather than go through the DVD's 3-4 episodes at a time. Some of those older series had 22 or more episodes per season.

[John Mc]

I spent some time contemplating the downside of streaming this weekend.

I streamed what turned out to be a great movie (North Face for those interested). I then realized the only reason this was in my queue was because I had seen the preview on another Netflix DVD. But steaming doesn't get you any previews, so I was wondering on what other titles I might be missing out on.

Anyone else miss trailers and/or extras now that they stream a lot more than DVD???

[SteveR]

Like John Mc, I find DVD previews useful. Several times I've found movies through previews that I hadn't noticed were available in Netflix. I wonder if there is a site that has previews that are found on DVD's?

Most of our weekday evening streaming is about 80% TV, but when I'm home and watching, it is about 50/50 TV/movies.

When we used to have cable, there were some shows we liked watching during dinner after work (like Andy Griffith show). Now we stagger some older shows on DVD and watch them during dinner like we used to; but we'd rather have these available on streaming. Either way, I think Netflix is such a great deal.

[david v]

i'd say largely i stream more movies. i'll watch a one off episode of a comedy show, but most of my tv viewing in still on dvd. mostly due HBO's content not being available.

i do stream a lot of tv shows online, but it's either from hulu or the content creator's website, like abc.com or southparkstudios.com

[tntbaker1]

At least 95% of my streaming is TV content. I am currently working through X-Files, Soap, Firefly, 30 Rock and Fear Itself on streaming. I occasionally watch a movie through streaming also. Much easier to deal with than watching 3-4 episodes on DVD/Blu-ray. I have only watched 30 Rock through streaming. I used to be able to say the same with Dexter but season 4 did not become available on streaming with the set was released (as it did on previous seasons).

[RowdyReptile]

I'm a bit backwards on this. Almost a third of my discs have been TV shows, while very little streaming has. I watched all three seasons of Mad Men on blu-ray this year (9 discs total) and now I'm onto Breaking Bad. These AMC shows look stunning on blu-ray and aren't available streaming.

I don't like having to wait for the next disc, but if anything, having it on disc encourages me to go ahead and watch it so I can return it. If they were all available streaming, It might actually take me longer to get around to watching them.

Streaming, on the other hand, has been mostly indie movies. I added Battlestar Galactica to my queue but have no idea when I'll get around to starting that one.

[CJ]

TV streaming - 0%
DVD streaming - 100%

Very few of those TV series interest me. If something TV is worth watching, I'll just rent the DVDs.

[dAVe]

I would say that I stream more TV shows versus Movies but I also need to include the fact that 95% of my total NetFlix viewing time is spent watching their DVD media. So while the fact that 70% of my streaming activity are TV episodes might sound noteworthy the reality is I do very little streaming in the grand scheme of things. I don't see that changing any time soon but I wish to say the PS3 does rock the Streams now that the NetFlix app is native. Life is good.

[Mike]

I feel like the majority of streaming movies suck. That leaves TV shows to watch. Thanks to Starz there are a few good movies. The only shows I'm interested in (HBO - like True Blood) aren't available.

I sure hope Netflix doesn't stray to far from what made it popular in the first place - Movies.

If Netflix did only TV shows, I'd cancel.

[Rob H]

My Netflix streaming is heavily skewed towards movies. 90% of what I stream is comprised of foreign and independent features that I can't find elsewhere, as well as some personal faves that stream in HD which aren't available as a Blu-ray yet.

On the TV side, every once in a while I'll watch a favorite episode from a series long past, such as Buffy or Sliders. I'm very up to date on current series, and thus have no need to stream them from Netflix, if they're even available.

[Jdrch]

I watch all of my TV shows via Netflix.

[TG]

100% of my DVDs are TV (most of the shows I watch are not available on Streaming).

90% of my streaming are movies

/still want subtitles for English-language streaming - the hearing-impaired and -folk-who-don't-want-to-annoy-the-wife would appreciate it

[Yssup Tae]

lately netflix hasn't been getting tv shows on blu-ray, only dvd... even if it's not on streaming. yet i pay a premium for blu-ray. so i scratch the crap out of the disc so i don't feel like i'm getting ripped off so bad.

[jheartney]

if it's available for streaming I rarely get the disk.

Also, logistically TV shows are much nicer streamed - unless you feel like OD'ing on four episodes at a time, you're stuck with the disk for days. I can stream an episode per night and not have a barely-watched disk sitting there all the time.

Then there are the kid-favorites, like Mythbusters. I really couldn't see bothering with disks of that, but streaming it works great (at least, so long as we don't get repeated buffering interruptions).