Discovery Head Takes Aim At Netflix

The president of the Discovery Channel gave an interview to the Guardian this week ahead of the Edinburgh television festival and he tells the paper that he believes interest in "binging" TV shows might be ebbing.

Rich Ross argued that the available pool of shows that lend themselves to binge watching has been used up and viewers will begin to migrate back to linear television channels, where they can watch a show and experience a "water cooler" moment. "Like anything I think the slack has now been let up," said Ross. "I’ve seen The Wire, Breaking Bad, all of that."

Since Ross took over Discovery a year ago, the network has struggled a bit to adjust to the post-Netflix viewer landscape. It's coming off of two quarters of record-setting ratings, but shares of the company are down 40% compared to this time last year.

Ross argues that Netflix is spending huge amounts of money to create original programming that is quickly binged away by subscribers.

He notes that Netflix's financial filings for 2014 show that it has almost $10 billion in "streaming content obligations," effectively payments to rights owners for shows, due in the next five years.

"That’s a lot of money," he says. "The theory is you unleash the power of the viewer. While I am contending it may be true, or possible, that is a type of viewer. I think there are many viewers, not just older viewers, who want to have a conversation that [traditional] TV and content represent."