Do viewers care what networks air their favorite TV show? http://ift.tt/2yfUyQ8

Legacy TV companies are being forced to contend with the possibility that viewers might not actually be loyal to their network.

With third-quarter company earnings reports around the corner, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield took a look at some of the big questions facing the media landscape in a blog post on Wednesday. One question for the industry is whether TV network brands even matter?

The debate is whether networks like NBC, CBS

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 and FOX or platforms like Netflix Inc.

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Amazon.com Inc.

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 and Hulu — a joint venture of Walt Disney Co

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21st Century Fox Inc., Comcast Corp.

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 and Time Warner Inc. — own the future.

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“While linear TV certainly has some amazing content, we do not believe consumers have much loyalty to TV network brands beyond HBO,” Greenfield wrote. “When you watch ‘This is Us’ on Hulu, do you know or even care that it airs on NBC? When you watch ‘The Americans’ on Comcast’s X1 on-demand, do you care that it was on FX?

“The consumer only cares about watching the content they are interested in.”

It boils down to is whether a TV viewer is willing to watch anything on NBC simply because they love NBC. As Greenfield points out, this is often the case for networks like Time Warner Inc-owned

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 HBO.

A June report from advertising and consulting firm Anatomy Media found that millennials, age 18 to 26, generally can’t tell what networks are responsible for TV shows. What seems to be most important is accessibility. The study found that 71% of younger millennials watch content via an over-the-top streaming platform.

See: Younger millennials don’t know what networks are responsible for TV shows, unless it’s Netflix

This speaks to another issue Greenfield raised in his post: That platforms have supplanted content as king.

In an interview with the New York Times last week, WndrCo founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said: “We’ve all grown up with this idea that content is king… I realized, it actually isn’t. Content is the king maker, it’s not the king. The is the platform. HBO is the king. Netflix is the king. Spotify is the king.”

John Landgraf, chief executive of 21st Century Fox Inc.’s

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 cable network FX, wrote a guest column in the Hollywood reporter last week detailing why TV brands still matter in today’s changing landscape.

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“Wall Street is placing bets that platforms will own the future of everything, including TV. This is reflected in the radically disparate valuations (relative to profits) of traditional media companies vs. internet media companies,” Landgraf wrote. “I think Wall Street is wrong about the bets it is not placing on the future of the strongest TV brands.

“As skeptical as I am that an algorithm will ever figure out what few shows my wife and I will enjoy together, I’m almost certain that it will never figure out what I don’t know I might love tomorrow. To answer that, you have to truly put the artist first. Not the data. Not the money. Not the plan for world domination.”