Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer for Netflix, fired back at FX CEO John Landgraf‘s claim of a TV “content bubble” on Thursday.
“There’s no such thing as too much TV,” Sarandos said at the HRTS State of the Industry Luncheon in Beverly Hills. “Unless we’re all spending more and not watching more. That’s not the case. The number of television [hours] we’re watching is growing dramatically.”
Showtime President David Nevins also countered the claim, pointing to his network’s new streaming service.
“It’s clearly going to be what drives our growth moving forward,” Nevins said. “It has become a major part of who we are very fast. We get some numbers every morning. We haven’t disclosed any publicly yet, but it’s clearly happening.”
Paul Lee, president of ABC Entertainment Group, was also bullish about the future of television. “The great thing about television right now is that risk-taking is being rewarded,” he said. “We’re all in an on-demand world. … where if you don’t love it, it doesn’t survive.”
Landgraf had previously warned that the “content bubble” was going to “deflate” in the coming years. “This is simply too much television,” Landgraf said at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in August. “My sense is that 2015 and 2016 will represent a peak in U.S. TV, and afterward we’ll see a decline.”