According to a new study conducted by the research and consulting firm Centris Marketing Science, Netflix’s original series, led by Orange is the New Black, experienced a marked surge in viewership during the third quarter. According to the study, 72 percent of subscribers in the United States said that they watched at least some of Netflix’s original programming. The study doesn’t indicate how much or what shows that subscribers watched, but it did report that 57 percent of subscribers find the original content to be an important reason why they are Netflix subscribers.
Buoyed, perhaps, by this news, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings also signalled the death of broadcast networks, comparing it to the horse before the car:
“It’s kind of like the horse, you know, the horse was good until we had the car,” he said. “The age of broadcast TV will probably last until 2030.”
Hastings is also nonplussed by Nielsen’s plans to measure Netflix viewing based on the audio heard by Nielsen meters in Nielsen homes. Hastings claims those measurements won’t be very relevant because they will not measure viewing on tablets and other mobile devices.
Meanwhile, while viewers across all demos are sampling more and more original content, expect viewers above the age of 60 — the median age for a Longmire viewer — to sample even more now that Netflix is bringing the fourth season of Longmire to its service. Niche comedy fans will probably also turn out in droves from the Tina Fey comedy The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the sitcom Netflix recently took over from NBC.
