A new focus group study on the usage habits of Netflix subscribers has found that some local moms are using the movie and TV streaming service as "an $8-a-month babysitting service." According to Bernstein Research, who sat down a bunch of San Francisco moms in a room to pick their brains last month, the study found that most moms signed up for Netflix with the intention of binging on movies and TV themselves, but now find use the service to keep their lovable little blessings entertained with commercial-free reruns.
The responses from Bernstein's mommy panel probably sound familiar to anyone who has sat their kid in front of an whole season of Spongebob Squarepants, but still has a hard time finding someone for the grownups to watch on a Friday night. From AllThingsD:
- Some mothers like that Netflix streaming allows them to watch older content, but many consider Netflix as a service better suited for children because of lack of interesting content for adults.
- Mothers like that Netflix does not have commercials and contains programming their kids enjoy (citing Dora, SpongeBob, etc.).
- Many mothers cited instances in which their children watched the entire episode library of a given show (e.g., SpongeBob) on Netflix.
- Almost universally, the mothers found that kids do not tire of watching the same programs over and over again.
- Regarding the types of shows one child watched on Netflix, one mother stated, “Mostly she watches the shows she’s seen a million times [already] on Netflix.”
- “I think I use it more for the kids than I do for myself.”
Interestingly, most of the San Francisco moms don't think Netflix is a good enough service to replace their DVRs and cable TV subscriptions, probably because it takes like years
