Netflix is booming, but viewers love non-Original content
Netflix today presented the figures and that was a nice message for fans of the service. In the first quarter of this year, the video service received more than respectable 7.4 million viewers, the largest ever. With 3.7 billion turnover that is a very nice start to the year. That does not mean that Netflix swims in the money, because all those Originals also cost a lot, as we already knew .
It does ensure that more and more people become members. Series as Altered Carbon Jessica Jones and the new talk show by David Letterman are striking. It is striking that in America there is ultimately more attention to licensed content than to the Originals. Series like Breaking Bad, How I with Your Mother, Gray’s Anatomy and Friends are viewed so well that it provides more viewers than Stranger Things Black Mirror or House of Cards . I can not avoid the impression that the situation is different internationally, but that is difficult to prove without figures.
To be taken seriously
Netflix plans to launch 80 films this year alone, although it starts to scour the establishment. The Cannes Film Festival, for example, delicately announced that the Netflix films were no longer welcome at the festival. Fine, Netflix said, then not. Whether that will have long-term consequences for the talent that Netflix can attract for new series and films is difficult to estimate, but for now they are not really bothered by it.
The service is now just continuing to close deals for new films and series with hit makers such as Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story), Shonda Rhimes (Gray’s, Scandal), Shaun Levy (Night at the Museum, Date Night) and Jenji Kohan (Orange is the New Black, GLOW). So there will be enough in the future. That also costs a lot, because only 8 billion is already going through this year to create new content, but as long as Netflix continues to grow (and the expectation for the next three months is another six million subscribers worldwide), nobody cares.