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from the original-content-for-the-win dept.
Netflix's foray into original content is paying off:
[Rather] than pay money out to studios for the right to show existing content, it instead ploughed its cash into shows such as Stranger Things, The Crown, Luke Cage and the remake of Gilmore Girls. In 2016, those "Netflix Originals" - already a term you could argue has become synonymous with quality - came thick and fast. The firm said it produced 600 hours of original programming last year - and intends to raise that to about 1,000 hours in 2017. Its budget to achieve that is $6bn - a billion more than last year.
On Wednesday we learned the company has been rewarded handsomely for putting its eggs in the original content basket. After hours trading on Wednesday saw the company's stock rise by as much as 9% on the news it had added 7.05 million new subscribers in the last three months of 2016. That's far greater than the 5.2 million they had anticipated, and left them ending the year with 93.8 million subscribers in total - and an expectation of breaking the symbolic 100 million mark by the end of March. In all, 2016 saw Netflix take in $8.83bn in revenue - with a profit of $186.7m.
Also at USA Today, TechCrunch, and Reuters.
Previously: Chris Rock Reportedly Signs $40 Million Deal With Netflix for Two Comedy Specials
Netflix Throws In the Towel On China
Netflix Lets Users Watch Videos Offline -- No DVDs Required
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday January 19 2017, @10:34PM
Netflix was a nice service, it will soon be a nice TV channel. It ain't worth a 374 PE to buy into.
Reality check time, the old Netflix is dead, they realize it and are using their capital to transition to a TV channel before the market realizes it.
The old Netflix could only work as an "in addition to cable" entity. The content owners were willing to license their content cheap only on the assumption Netflix was mostly selling it again to cable subscribers who were already buying it, Netflix was only making it a little more convenient. Once cord cutting began it was obvious what would happen, pricing would increase to a point where streaming would cost about the same as cable. Since Netflix knows their customers won't pay that, they know their life as they know it lasts about as long as their current content contracts. So if they can't beat cable they will join them, cable companies are building Netflix into their boxes, obviously they aren't considered an enemy at this point. In five years Netflix will BE a cable channel, complete with all of their original content merged into cable company On Demand menus. The streaming service that used to be Netflix will be exactly like every other cable channel's streaming offering, available only with a cable or sat sub or a separate sub that isn't really attractive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @11:06PM
You hit it on the head. I just hope someone picks up the reins of the old Netflix to fill the void. I am becoming less and less interested in their new model. Amazon Prime is confusing as hell to browse (what is free and what isn't?). I haven't tried Hulu or Sling yet, but that's not too far off for me at this point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @11:33PM
I agree about amazon. It interface goes sideways pretty quickly.
This works 'ok' but get off that page and meh... https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Video [amazon.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday January 20 2017, @01:29AM
You two are funny. What new business model? How is Netflix two steps away from being a terrorist and making us tape our cords back together? Here's the fucking reality: Everything on Netflix and Cable is on the Internet.
I can pirate a Netflix show.... which makes zero sense when it's actually easier just to play it on Netflix. The TV and movies that fell off Netflix's catalogue? They didn't fall out of the Internet's catalogue. Nothing ever does, despite how many A-list celebrities might want it to. I can get that movie within 20 minutes, or a little longer if I feel like seeing it in BluRay quality. Shit, even sports are being capped a LOT more often than they used to. Not to the point where you can escape the ESPN tax yet or cut the cord, but it gets better by the day.
Netflix is convenience. The actual convenience of being lazy and just clicking a button. Plus they're making new content now which acts as competition the the unoriginal pure profit driven dipshits that cancelled Firefly. Netflix content is turning out to not be terrible.
The moment Netflix jacks up its prices or attempts to make itself exclusive, that convenience disappears and the Internet remains. It gets even better for us. Who cares about Net Neutrality and data caps? The cost of storage has plummeted to the point where people can and do share large catalogues of movies.
So what's the problem again?
Netflix has figured it out. Offer convenience at the right place for as much content as you can muster and the people will eat it up. Their competitors spend their time desperately pushing old business models hoping Netflix tanks. It's going to be a long time before Netflix can only raise revenues by raising prices, and I don't see Netflix disappearing anytime soon.
Currently we can get excellent service from Netflix for a price that is reasonable for the abused wage slaves most of us are. When that stops..... we cut another cord and laugh :)
In fact, cheap access to good content while often being legal is about the only fucking improvement in our shitty lives all things considered. Everything else about America has got worse.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday January 20 2017, @04:19AM
They don't care about you. They didn't care about me when I used to fly the Jolly Roger either. But they keep the bar high enough to stop the clueless and they understand that most of us clueful peeps don't stay poor enough to make piracy worth the bother for long. When Napster became so easy every high school student, not just a few of the nerds, was doing it they dropped a hammer on it. Now they drop hammers on every torrent index that becomes popular and have the ISPs nuke enough accounts that it isn't safe without a VPN account.
And that is why they dropped a hammer on Netflix, it was becoming a legal way to 'cheat' the content cartels out of their 'rightful due' of about $50 per household per month.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday January 20 2017, @08:22PM
Annnnnnnnnnnndddddd? The Jolly Roger didn't give a fuck about you when you flew the colors either. What's your point here? Cuz them caring is completely and wholly irrelevant. It's like me caring that the sun comes out in the morning to make my room too bright to sleep in.
*snicker* The bar is high? Like how high? That's the funniest thing you've said yet. The bar is LOW. Has been for quite some time. The bar is HIGH... only if you're looking for quality and a low chance of malware.
Money has nothing to do with it, although +$100 is a bit fucking steep when min/maximum wage barely supports obtaining food. Stop thinking money is the driving factor when it's convenience and consuming the content on consumers terms that are the only driving factors.
Piracy isn't so much that it is free. Truth is, it's really not free. We're paying for bandwidth, and if you want to really be able to consume whatever you want, you're paying for a seedbox or equivalent. However, your monthly Internet bill already includes the lion's share of the costs, and a decent seedbox will still clock in at a fraction of a monthly cable/satellite bill.
You mention the whack-a-mole game as if anyone has ever won the whack-a-mole game. When Napster went down did sharing of music stop? When they shut down a public torrent index does it stop anything? When they shut down one of the myriad of private indexes does it stop anything? NOPE
People are encrypting their traffic now too. You are correct about that, and all of my traffic is heavily encrypted and proxied. That's just a good practice in general.
What hammer have they dropped on Netflix again? I only ask because it sure as fuck doesn't seem like it's working at all. Like I said before, even if Netflix disappears it doesn't put the genie back in the bottle.
The days of event programming and controlled distribution channels are over. We're apparently old because we're arguing about traditional programming while the millennials and younger are scoffing and going back to YouTube and Twitch. Their preferred entertainment outlets.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @02:27PM
Well, for starters, I don't have much of a desire to pirate anything, at least as a regular practice. I don't feel entitled to these movies so I don't pirate them just like I don't steal chewing gum from the grocery store checkout line even though it would be very easy to do. If the price for this content is set too high, then I'll turn my attention to something else instead of justifying to myself how I deserve to get it and pat myself on the back with how clever I am to get it for free.
I really don't get your lack of perspective. I expressed a distaste for the direction their business model is headed and you take that as a statement of them being terrorists? My point is that they are moving away from their modus operandi. You might like their new content, and that's fine, but I don't want yet another fucking HBO. It was a good source for a very nice broad pool of on-demand programming, but that pool is shrinking for a variety of business reasons they're making.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 20 2017, @10:02AM
That's astute.
I dropped them recently because they were headed that direction. A couple of their shows were OK. But most of them weren't. The "Get Down"? I couldn't care less about the intimate inside story of hip-hop; I live next door to the sort of people that comprise that culture and it ain't romantic. A reboot of the Gilmore Girls? Why not revive Dawson's Creek while you're at it?
But try to find a movie that we can watch as a family with our young kids, and it's SOL. You spend enough months in a row surfing for half an hour to try to find something to watch, and then switching it off to go read a book or build something instead and you realize that even the small subscription fee is not worth it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday January 20 2017, @07:00PM
I like the direction it's going. If you want to watch old movies then buy the DVDs at a walmart or gas station bargain bin. Amazon has a lot of older movies if you want to go legit digital. Of course i would prefer to watch old classics on netflix but i know that the movies studios kept jacking up the prices on netflix until something gave. I would rather see Netflix give them the finger and try to make new good movies.
I think you're way off on Netflix's future. People like me, for example, will never sub to cable again. Even HBO just migrated from being exclusively on cable to having their own streaming channel. Between amazon, hbo now, and netflix my house has everything we want. The best part is zero commercials. No idea why more people haven't dumped cable (other than sports, of course). Cable trying to integrate netflix is a desperate attempt at stopping cord cutters. It's a poison pill for them though. If cable subscribers realize they are spending most of their time on netflix then they'll buy a roku and dump cable.
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