Netflix aims to disrupt the entire TV industry

In recent months, the media has been heavily involved in the battle between HBO and Netflix as HBO prepares to launch its own online service similar to Netflix.

But Netflix on Wednesday released better-than-expected financial data, giving CEO Reed Hastings a good opportunity to remind people that the company is not hunting HBO but the entire television industry.

Hastings himself certainly understands this. While Netflix has been happy to regard HBO as a competitor, Hastings has repeatedly stated that he does not need to rely on HBO's failure in exchange for the company's growth.

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos once said, "The reason we chose HBO as our competitor is so that the company can become HBO faster than HBO can become Netflix." Currently, Netflix and HBO's customer base already have a lot of overlap.

But Hastings said Wednesday that Netflix sees the real opportunity not as replacing HBO but as helping to destroy the television industry and its cookie-cutter, take-it-or-leave-it bundling model.

Hastings predicts that the traditional television industry will be replaced by "Internet TV", that is, users can customize a variety of applications, networks, and channels at will.

Hastings has been making this point for years. He mentioned it in a memo to shareholders two years ago. But on Wednesday's earnings call, Hastings made similar remarks for the first time.

“I think you really have to think about the huge value of HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu, compared to the massive bundle model,” he said. “While traditional TV has been around for 50 years, Internet TV is starting to boom. In the next 20 years, Internet TV will replace traditional TV…Internet TV will allow people to customize their own content in the future.”

Hastings also said, "The emergence of online sports programming means that users can order programs more autonomously, which also allows them to spend more money on Netflix."

If Hastings is right, then the existing TV viewing structure that HBO and other TV channels have spent decades building up faces an uncertain future. The TV industry needs to become more agile and better at convincing viewers that it is worth the money.

Obviously, the market is more optimistic about Netflix. Barton Crockett, an analyst at market research firm FBR & Co, gave Netflix a target share price of $900 in an investor report on Thursday. The analyst believes that Netflix's share price will continue to rise sharply. Crockett previously gave Netflix a target share price of $400.

Netflix's stock price surged by $86.59, or 18.21%, to close at $562.05 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Thursday. In the past 52 weeks, Netflix's lowest stock price was $299.50 and its highest was $568.75. Based on Thursday's closing price, Netflix's market value has reached $34 billion.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.