The movie business also took a hit with the rise of cable. But when Paramount Pictures started to sputter, the studio’s corporate overlords at Viacom essentially shrugged. Who needed box-office receipts when the company’s cable properties — Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, VH1, CMT, Logo — were printing cash?
That was then.
Out: buying a costly bundle of channels, most of which you don’t watch, and dealing with the hassle of a technician’s coming to your house when it goes awry. In: cheap, easy-to-activate, easy-to-cancel, digitally delivered entertainment on demand.
Nowadays in Los Angeles, the executives, agents and producers involved in streaming are the ones with the swagger, leaving people in cable to experience the reversal of fortune that claimed the magazine business. What was once a land of corner lunch tables and infinite expense accounts has become a grinding realm of desk salads and panic over quarterly numbers.
Showrunners who made their names in traditional TV like Ryan Murphy (“American Horror Story”), Shonda Rhimes (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and the duo behind HBO’s “Game of Thrones” have decamped, lured to streaming by nine-figure deals and the excitement of being at the center of the action.
Without question, analysts say, the flood of new streaming services will cause more people to cancel traditional cable and satellite hookups. By 2009, about 10 million adults in the United States had dropped their pay-TV subscriptions, according to the research firm eMarketer. By the end of this year, that number is projected to be 46 million, according to eMarketer estimates.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/business/media/Disney-Plus-streaming.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
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