Netflix Rises As Bundled Cable Dies

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

Another nail in the coffin of bundled cable was driven home on Wednesday, as Netflix said its video-streaming service topped 62 million subscribers worldwide, sending the company’s shares to a record high. Netflix reported that its U.S. subscribers soared 2.28 million in the first quarter of 2015. International accounts did even better than that, climbing 2.6 million. The company’s sales added 24 percent, growing to $1.57 billion.

Of all the members of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, Netflix has out paced all but three in the first quarter of 2015.

Bolstered by original programming like “House of Cards” and accelerated by new series such as “Daredevil,” Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells wrote a letter to shareholders on Wednesday asserting that the board should split the company’s stock. The past three years have seen the shares quadruple than what  where they were before.

UBS AG has estimated that Netflix will count 87 million subscribers internationally by 2020. They currently have 20.9 million.

As Breitbart News reported in March, “According to Nielsen, live viewership of television is dropping while subscribers to streaming television continues to explode.” The Washington Post reported, ‘Adults watched an average of four hours and 51 minutes of live TV each day in the fourth quarter of 2014, down 13 minutes from the same quarter of 2013, according to Nielsen’s fourth-quarter 2014 Total Audience Report.”

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