Netflix eats Cable TV's dinner

Netflix strolled into Nigeria yesterday, as well as 129 other countries. I know it’s no big deal to a lot of people but trust me, it is to some. It’s like we are finally free of certain companies holding Nigerians to ransom. No name calling please; I have home training!
Netflix is an online video/movies streaming company. They started with video rentals with a subscription model, which was innovative at that time, and captured the market with unlimited views and no late return fees. Netflix is an example of high-performance innovative company; they quickly jumped on the bandwagon of internet movies and today account for 45% of all internet traffic in the US between the hours of 6PM and 9PM. Netflix offers millions of movies at very low and simple subscription model – pay a flat fee a month and watch as many as your eye balls could endure. Cancel anytime you want and come back when you are led by the spirit.
Initially confined to US, they aggressively moved into new territories such as Europe, Brazil, etc. but yesterday, in one giant sweep, entered into 130 new territories, including Ikeja, Lekki, Abuja and Kaduna. Ok, you get the drift.
If you want to read about the history of Netflix, go here. But the founder, Reed Hastings, is a personal hero of mine. Supremely smart, simple and hey, he demystified movies for everyone. But that isn’t all, he’s a great dude to work for.
When compared to what we currently get now from cable TVs, there is even no basis for comparison. Instead of paying N17K a month to watch from maximum of two TVs, you can get 4 simultaneous screens for $11.99 per month.
No need to even record and watch again, the movies are always there. Pause on the TV and continue on your phone. You can’t ask for more.
Some things are missing though:
I want to watch live TV, such as CNN, to just listen to Donald Trump yap.
Hate it or love it, Nollywood is keeping certain companies alive in Nigeria today. Mostly crappy content but hey, they love it if not they would have stopped acting. Haters like Deji Olowe can go hug an electric pole.
I want to see Arsenal get spanked, live. OK, sports is a big deal! Who doesn’t want to watch Wimbledon or see that British boy, what’s his name again, run around in circles in formula 1 cars.
When things like this happens, there would be gainers and losers, let’s talk about them.
Gainers
My friends and millions of Nigerians that want access to good movies. I mean, crawling to the cinemas can be a dog of a chore. Buying pirated movies is too much hassles for my simple life. Imagine having access to millions of movies on demand, play, pause, rewind and just anytime I want. Series don enter wahala!
Smile, Swift and other internet providers will now have guys guzzling their bandwidth like hell. Smile will probably see an uptick in its unlimited plan because 5GB of internet is just one Netflix HD movie
Banks will discover new and stable revenue stream of customers doing international transactions without leaving Nigeria. It’s small but it’s steady. Trust me, some banks are already prepping communications to their customers about this. What do you expect?
Losers
Cable TV. I’m sorry but babes thou art overpriced! Some of my friends spend upward of 17K a month to watch what? Super crap most often than not. If you miss a video, so be it.
Pirates will discover that it’s cheaper for their customers to do Netflix than buy CDs but no chilling 🙂
Banks may face more fraud issues as the payment process for Netflix is, I’m sorry, too simple not to be abused by just anyone. Just enter your card information and that’s it. Nothing stops anyone from using a stolen card to watch few mojos for some months.

Author: Adedeji Olowe

Adédèjì is the founder of Lendsqr, the loan infrastructure fintech powering lenders at scale. Before this, he led Trium Limited, the corporate VC of the Coronation Group, which invested in Woven Finance, Sparkle Bank, Clane, and L1ght, amongst others. He has almost two decades of banking experience, including stints as the Divisional Head of Electronic Banking at Fidelity Bank Plc. He drove the turnaround of the bank’s digital business. He was previously responsible for United Bank for Africa Group’s payment card business across 19 countries. Alongside other industry veterans, he founded Open Banking Nigeria, the nonprofit driving the development and adoption of a common API standard for the Nigerian financial industry. Beyond open APIs, Adédèjì works deeply within the fintech ecosystem; he’s the board chairman at Paystack. Adédèjì is a renowned fintech pundit and has been blogging on technology and payments at dejiolowe.com since 2001.

6 thoughts on “Netflix eats Cable TV's dinner”

  1. Ok.. on a more serious note… Netflix is great but asides Netflix exclusives all other Netflix movies are at least a year or two old. DSTV too but the Cinemas will keep their customers.
    Secondly internet service in Nigeria has not matured yet. I live in Nairobi and I have unlimited data at 20Mbps bandwidth for the equivalent of 10k NGN monthly which is amazing. My Netflix movies don’t even blink or buffer for a second… Not sure guys in Lagos can say the same.
    It’s a good development but infrastructure in Nigeria isn’t ready to support Internet TV just yet.

  2. @deji. Lovely read as always. Well diced as well, in terms of new opportunities and threats to local businesses.
    @Nanna. We’ve got good Internet services in Nigeria as well, if subscribers can afford those. But bandwidth prices are bound to drop lower, speed is bound to increase too, and 2016 would be a great year for alot of these to be effected in the country. You know with a VPN you can have access to wider collections from other countries right? Especially newer movies and shows that are not readily available on your local Netflix.

    1. Can we really depend on the Internet providers not to mess up? If they don’t, then trust me, some certain cable TV providers are in for it. Reminds me of what GSM did to business centers.

  3. @Nnanna, Netflix also generate original content that are awesome – House of Cards, Beast of No Nations and hey new movies are showing up – try Fifty from Mo’ Abudu.
    For the internet speed, omo, wetin person go say?

  4. @nnanna, my thoughts exactly.
    The upper-mid-class are excited about ‘the streaming giant’. A good initiative l must say; will drop costs but quality & speed matters a lot. Given the realities on ground, it won’t be easy for them Bro.
    Talking about movies, fifty is worth-seeing however, it falls short of the mega-hype.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.