A year and a half after launching into the deep end of live streaming, Netflix continues to offer events accessible all over the world, materializing as a real television channel.
What if Netflix took over the traditional television model? A few years ago, this question might have seemed absurd, but with changes in Internet users' habits, SVOD platforms, once pioneers in program broadcasting – for example by offering all the episodes of a season on the day of the exit – they had to adapt, and sometimes very quickly.
How Netflix secretly puts its subscribers into boxes
More targeted ads for Netflix
For Netflix, it was truly the arrival of advertising that changed the game. In July 2023, the platform launched its first live event, albeit with some damage. Bugs were noted, indicating partial mastery of the subject. But the months have passed and Netflix has revised its copy, and will offer this Saturday, November 16, a boxing match between the legend of the field, Mike Tyson, and the controversial influencer – turned boxer – Jake Paul (brother of Logan Paul).
Broadcast live, the event is international. Until now, Netflix only communicated in the United States on its live programs due to the absence of localized versions, but given the wait around this fight, it is all the divisions of the platform which are hammering this broadcast for months.
As the Washington Post explains, broadcasting live programs is not a coincidence and is potentially much more profitable. During these events, Netflix can in fact know who is watching them, and can thus broadcast much more targeted advertisements than when it simply offers them before, during or after a series or film. However, targeted advertising costs more…
Codes adopted for decades by traditional television, and which explain why advertisers continue to invest in the small screen and less in SVOD. On a channel like TF1, we know which audience will be reached and their level of attention. For a football match for example, the viewing time will be very high, and the price of advertising as well.
Flirt with “premium” advertisers
Netflix, which is still considered a little thumb in the advertising world, must therefore prove that it is worth advertising on its platform, and live events are much more interesting.
For the Washington Post, in the event of continued success, the formula of live programs and advertising could establish itself and become essential, including for historical subscribers fleeing advertising like the plague. We would then find ourselves even more in a television channel format.
How Netflix imposed its empire
Ted Sarandos, one of the bosses of Netflix, explained that the trend of live events was not about to stop, highlighting the buzz generated by an event “that everyone can see together an event.” Not far from reinventing live so…
At the time when Netflix did not have an offer with advertisements, the success of a program was only measured by its audience, over a more or less long period of time. From now on, advertising provides an additional argument, especially when it has “premium” advertisers during live events such as the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. A subscriber will thus see targeted advertisements at the same time as millions of other people.
Especially since Netflix operates differently on these programs, and will undoubtedly operate in the same way in 2025 when it offers wrestling: there are no “commercial breaks” but the sponsors are constantly present on the screen, 'one way or another. The success of its ad-supported offering, which has attracted 70 million subscribers to date, in any case shows the beginning of a path forward.
