Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made a grave announcement this week about the future of broadcast television: it will cease to exist by the year 2030.
"It's kind of like the horse, you know, the horse was good until we had the car," Hastings said in Mexico City on Nov. 24, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "The age of broadcast TV will probably last until 2030."
The CEO traveled south of the border to announce plans for greater expansion of his online video streaming service to Latin America. Netflix reaches more than 5 million customers in the region, but Hastings believes it can reach so many more.
"Latin America is one of the fastest growth areas in the world in terms of broadband households and Internet connectivity," he said.
Netflix launched in six European countries earlier this fall and recently announced plans to expand next into Australia and New Zealand. About 53 million people across the globe subscribe to the service.
"We are trying to get to a place where it's fully global and you can get anything, anywhere," Hastings said, although the company has no plans yet to expand into Asia.
Netflix has changed the viewing habits of television fans by acquiring content from traditional broadcast and cable television outlets as well as creating its own content. Nielsen will start to measure the number of people tuning in for programming options next month, but Hastings says the data collected by the ratings company won't matter.
"It's not very relevant," he said. "There's so much viewing that happens on a mobile phone or an iPad that [Nielsen won't] capture."
