Dick Wolf: Life for Free Commercials

Posted by admin on Thursday, December 20, 2018

Dick Wolf Money Quote saying the advertising model makes television free until you must pay to watch commercial-free. Dick Wolf said:
 

 

“The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change” — Dick Wolf

 

 

In this quote, American television writer and producer Dick Wolf seems to be commenting on the emerging threat that streaming services posed to traditional broadcast or “free” television in the late 20th/early 21st century.

He notes that the reason television has historically been free to viewers is because it relies on commercials as a “life support system” to generate revenue. However, Wolf predicts that “that fundamental aspect is about to change” with the rise of on-demand streaming platforms that do not depend as heavily on commercial breaks to finance content.

By removing the need to sit through ads, streaming represented an “existential threat” to the commercial-supported business model that broadcast TV had long relied upon. Overall, Wolf appears to be accurately foreshadowing the seismic shift in viewership away from linear programming to on-demand services that was about to disrupt the television industry.