Golden Globe Nominations: Netflix, Amazon Big Winners, While Network TV Continues To Lose Ground

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are in a  battle to be the best-performing American stocks this year. Amazon is up 32 percent in the fourth quarter, while Netflix has climbed 23 percent. Both companies have also proven that the Internet streams some of the best television.

Investors can certainly ignore any naysayers. Amazon and Netflix, along with Hulu, were able to land a total of 14 nominations for their productions at this year's 73rd annual Golden Globe awards. This year's nominations proved that streaming services for original content have ascended to be amongst its award-season leaders.

In fact, the Globes' Best TV Series (Comedy) did not feature a single show from network television. NBC, which is now owned by Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA), did not receive a single nomination. As Hollywood Reporter noted, broadcast television's "11 nominations were topped by both premium cable (HBO, Showtime and Starz combined for 16), basic cable (FX, PBS, USA, AMC and BBC America combined for 15) and streaming services (Netflix, Amazon and Hulu collected 14)."

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According to PwC's annual five-year forecast for entertainment and media report, there is a downward growth rate for ad spending on television. PwC highlighted in 2014 that advertising would increase 5.5 percent annually over the next five years; PwC now says that rate will slow to just 4 percent annually through 2019.

Streaming video services such as Netflix and Amazon have managed to lure television viewers away from ad-based programming. PwC indicated that home video revenue is growing rapidly within the United States. It's expected to jump nearly 15 percent annually for the next five years to hit $16.5 billion by 2019. PwC director Matthew Lieberman had stated that a portion of this growth is coming at the expense of the TV advertising market.

Netflix's stock rose nearly 160 percent this year, and Amazon had jumped to 115 percent. Both companies were the only two on the S&P 500 to double in its value.