Television Reshaped by Big Data: Impacts and implications for Netflix-like platforms in the age of dataism

Abstract

Television was born analogue, almost 100 years ago: first broadcast across airwaves, then delivered via analogue cable and satellite, to reach millions and millions of people around the world. Like many other industries, television has been under the process of digital transformation, integrating digital technologies in all parts of its value chain, from content production to content distribution. Today, inseparable from the digital transformation process is the large, diverse and ever-growing volume of data created, captured, analyzed and applied – also known as Big Data. Television is being reshaped by Big Data, with newcomers to the industry such as Netflix leading the way, for others to follow and for others to fail. The concepts of Platform Capitalism, Surveillance Capitalism and Dataism may illuminate many of the challenges faced by the main stakeholders in the television industry, with implications that go much beyond this field. Lastly, Netflix’s impact on the production, distribution and consumption of audiovisual content is still to be understood in a small market such as Portugal: the current exploratory paper is also meant to be the basis of future research in Portugal about internet-distributed television.