44 ms·

Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquired programming in 2017

440 points by jaimefjorge 10y ago

aresant 10y ago
That's about $65/member per year at most current count of ~92m members. (1) https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/business/netflix-profit-rises-56-percent-to-67-million.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/business/netflix-profi...
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Not a bad return, considering it'll sit their library forever.
  - meric 10y ago
    If they ever give up the digital platform they can still license this content out, sell DVD's...
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      And they definitely do product placement.
      - manmal 10y ago
        Yes, I think "Love" season 2 has a subtitle in the beginning that says so.
        ClassyJacket 10y ago
        Also the fact that every second line of the script was obviously an ad for a certain ride sharing company.
        rhino369 10y ago
        The first time a character said "I'll get us an uber" it was pretty realistic for a millennial. But it got annoying the 8th time it happened.
      - vonzeppelin 10y ago
        Is that a PS Vita?
Belphemur 10y ago
When you see that the content holder make it harder and harder for Netflix to license their content, it makes senses to invest so much money on creating their own content. It seems in the end, we're really returning to the cable era. Be ready for packages giving you access to Netflix, Amazon, and channels...
- thinkMOAR 10y ago
  For what i know, that is already happening in NL with HBO Go. It disappeared from the market as separate, independent service and now only available via bundle package of one of NLs largest cable providers, Ziggo.
  - menacingly 10y ago
    At least in the states, HBO Go was always bundled with a cable subscription. HBO Now is the standalone streaming product, although standalone is a bit of a stretch because it's frustratingly tied to some other platform's billing system.
  - mason55 10y ago
    Ziggo also replaced their in house streaming service with Netflix directly on the cable boxes because there was no chance of them being able to compete. I believe Liberty Global (the worlds largest cable company and owners of Ziggo) is planning to do the same across Europe.
- mathattack 10y ago
  I think that Netflix (and Amazon) is trying to create enough content that you don't need anyone else. That would certainly justify their spending, and give them tremendous leverage against the other players.
  - LordKano 10y ago
    It also puts them in a better negotiating position. They still want and need the content but if they're producing their own, it allows them to be more selective in what they take on.
Fishman343 10y ago
I thought this number seemed absolutely nuts to begin with, but actually, given their ~100 million subscribers, it's pretty much inline with what the BBC might spend in the same sort of set up. As an observer, what still seems odd to me is the low number of shows or movies they are producing with that massive budget - last year "The Get Down" apparently cost $16 million per episode while the entire, huge hit, first season of "Stranger Things" cost $13 million. I would have thought that would inspire them to look for more of these low budget, low risk, big payoff shows, especially when you run a subscription service - surely a series that people binge over 2 weeks, with the potential for more seasons to keep people subscribing is better for you than a one time film? Nope, $100 Million on a single film this year.
- harigov 10y ago
  Well, Netflix is one of the most data driven companies we know of. Maybe they see something that we don't? Also, some stories inherently require significant amount of money to produce and there is nothing that you can do about it. Sure you can avoid spending money on such shows, but the last thing you want is to be known for your low quality shows.
  - Fishman343 10y ago
    Yes, I think you're right, it's probably better to be known for your 1 or 2 high quality hits and take a few losses overall, than to be known for low quality shows. That on top of the fact they can use data to minimise the risk must mean it's a realistic option.
- xienze 10y ago
  > As an observer, what still seems odd to me is the low number of shows or movies they are producing with that massive budget - last year "The Get Down" apparently cost $16 million per episode while the entire, huge hit, first season of "Stranger Things" cost $13 million. You think that's crazy? They paid Dave Chappelle $60 million for _3 standup specials_.
  - 10y ago
malloryerik 10y ago
Dear Netflix: New Game of Thrones series, pleaze!
- malloryerik 10y ago
  Just playing...
michaelmcneff 10y ago
Long shot, but if anyone from Netflix sees this, I'm looking for finishing funds to complete one of Sir Christopher Lee's last films, The Hunting of the Snark, based on the Lewis Carroll story and I would be happy to exclusively license it to Netflix. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887901/?ref_=nv_sr_1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887901/?ref_=nv_sr_1
- harigov 10y ago
  I am surprised that you would have to post it here. Don't they already provide some way to contact them? Given the small number of movies and shows that get produced, I expect that they would have responded to everyone.
  - michaelmcneff 10y ago
    As far as I know, there isn't an open channel to pitch projects to Netflix. This is because 1) they would get overwhelmed by pitches for projects and 2) because most studios don't accept unsolicited pitches for legal reasons (so that someone who sent them a pitch doesn't later sue Netflix for producing a similar project. So I think you still have to go the more traditional route of knowing someone within the Netflix development department that you can pitch your project to. Or your agent/manager/producer will need to have that connection to get you in the door. I've been stuck in indie film limbo trying to finish this film because it has a lot of complicated visual effects (which are close to being finished) so I currently don't have a manager or agent who can help to get me in the door at Netflix.
    - Quarrelsome 10y ago
      have you considered trying to find out who in that department has recently _left_ Netflix? That way you can pretend you were in touch with them thereby promoting you from unsolicited to solicited.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        ...Yeah, and when that comes out, how will that end for you?
erelde 10y ago
That's 1.3 shows a week. 15 hours. Podcasts and tv blogs will have work for quite some time.
bby 10y ago
Damn. They are going all in. I pay for netflix but haven't watched anything in like a year. God damn. O: Who else is in the same boat?
sgwealti 10y ago
Hopefully they'll green-light another season of MST3K.
- ConceptJunkie 10y ago
  Joel has stated that there's a good chance we'll see a Season 12. :-) He didn't give specifics (as usual), but it makes me happy.
yk 10y ago
Well, the sane way to distribute content when the only thing that has non-negligible costs is production, not distribution, [1] is to have some kind of infrastructure provider that provides distribution and billing and finances production. However having a monopoly has ugly economic effects and having a single entity that dictates media production has ugly social effects. I guess both Amazon and Netflix try to capture precisely that role, in that case they could charge almost whatever they want while they are not forced by competition to have high quality (and therefore expensive) content. Plus I am afraid that the market tends to produce a monopoly, because a individual subscriber will look for the service that has more content. [1] Hetzner currently charges EUR 1.40 / TB of additional traffic, so marginal distribution costs are in the range of EUR 10^-3 / Movie.
- merb 10y ago
  > Hetzner currently charges EUR 1.40 / TB of additional traffic, so marginal distribution costs are in the range of EUR 10^-3 / Movie. you can't just use the traffic cost. also if they would on hetzner, their network would be so bad that nobody could've watch netflix. (not that the hetzner network is bad, but it wouldn't withstand the amount of traffic from netflix (especially inter-region traffic is not as cheap as it could be, and also they need to talk with amazon/google about their traffic ("public pricing" is 0,01 USD per GB))) also there are other things that needs to be paid, servers, developers and other staff and stuff. it's not just that you write 20 lines of code and put it on hetzner and can scale globally.
  - yk 10y ago
    Of course not, but I am only using Hetzner as some measure of current network costs, because I know Hetzner pricing quite well. So of course I would additionally need server costs, staff, and so on. But if we assume that everything included we end up at a order of magnitude more, your .01 USD/GB, that is still a movie a day for the entire month before we really have to worry about distribution.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  I'll let you in on a little secret: paying for bandwidth per usage is for suckers. People think this is the only way to pay for bandwidth, but it's really only cloud providers who charge like that (and make a fortune off the racket). If you buy bandwidth from upstream IP transit providers, or rent a server in almost any non-cloud datacenter, you pay for capacity (e.g. $0.50 / Mbps), not usage. That is, you pay for the size of the pipe, not the amount of data going through it. Once you factor in optimizations like peering with ISPs and cross connect caching, bandwidth costs go way down. Also, in Netflix's case, they have a box containing terabytes of their most popular content sitting in almost every datacenter and peering with all major ISPs and backbone providers sharing the cross connect: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
barking 10y ago
looked interesting, shame it's paywalled
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Just install the bookmarklet referenced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13964395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13964395
  - barking 10y ago
    Thank you
- jrullman 10y ago
  If you use Chrome, try this extension — https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xray/dgkdfehohjdbmnldpcegekjakcdjlnkg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xray/dgkdfehohjdbm...
  - barking 10y ago
    That's great, thank you very much for making this
meesterdude 10y ago
I've liked some of netflix's original content - house of cards was the first - but a LOT of it is trash too. I don't doubt they have numbers that lead them to create these shows... but i question the scale of it sometimes. Of the netflix originals, i've only enjoyed a handful. Meanwhile, I've enjoyed a number of "low-budget" shows they've had (like ice pilots) and a number of the kung-fu movies they have available. But to be fair, a LOT of the low-budget stuff they have is trash too. It's clear (to me) that there is some effort to pad their content, to seem like they have a fuller collection, even if it's only a collection a raccoon would love. This, taken with the idea they tote of "having only the best performing people" displays a mismatch in cultural ideas and actual output. For me, I want netflix to succeed because another content producer is a welcome addition to the scene, and i hope they stay independent and don't get bought up by disney. I know in a few years they'll have a collection of original content to rival the older players.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  > Of the netflix originals, i've only enjoyed a handful. > It's clear (to me) that there is some effort to pad their content OR, they're just targeting demographics that don't include you. "I don't enjoy [thing] therefore it's padding" seems like kind of an ego-centric worldview to me. Haven't they even talked about how not having a fixed number of viewing hours means they can more easily target niche audiences?
  - nickonline 10y ago
    They've talked about making content for $100k that a small number watch and making content for $5M that a number 500x that watch. They know exactly what they're doing and every comment on this article in HN right now shows you that. One person says they hate something and it's crap and the next person tells them that they're wrong. Entertainment is subjective netflix has numbers to back up their spends.
- shawabawa3 10y ago
  Bear in mind that 90% of "regular" TV is trash (to me), but a huge number of people enjoy it. They aren't just padding their content, they're also catering to a wide audience, which means lots of people will hate lots of their content, but lots of people will also like some of their content
barking 10y ago
I got rid of sky last year. I was paying a multiple of what netflix costs and had to put up with what seemed like 5 minutes of ads for every 10 minutes of a show. It made GOT completely unwatchable. I am under no illusions about how netflix might behave if they ever achieve a monolithic dominance but so far it's great.
- exar0815 10y ago
  Sky is a useless hog of idiocy, just selling lots and lots of advertising. Most cringeworthy thing to tell about is Sky Bundesliga (the german soccer league). Its the only way to see the most popular sport in germany. You pay for Sky Entertainment, which you MUST have to get the basic soccer package (no other sports or international soccer) which already amounts to a whopping 42€/Month. When you have that, you can either watch via Cable at your specific address, or can use the abysmal Sky Go system. That runs on Silverlight(sic!) and allows only 3 different devices in 6 Months to connect. When you surpassed THOSE hurdles, you need to hope that Silverlight works on your OS (good luck Linux), doesn't crap out (what a coincidence with unmaintained software). Then you can watch the "Game". Except the commercials extend to 30s before the ref starts the game, during the game you get 2-3 times a framed commercial, the commenting person has to advertise multiple of sky's services during the game, the half time is 12 out of 15 minutes commercials, and the second half is the same. Disgusting. The 2-3 games a year I watch, I freely admit to using other means of watching.
  - barking 10y ago
    Sounds about right and that is what will kill it I think. I'd probably still be a customer but for the ads. When I first got sky I naively thought it would have none. But in fact Sky has more ads than free-to-air commercial tv in the UK does. .
  - justaman 10y ago
    You should see how bad American Football is. $50 USD for "Sunday Ticket" and literally half the game is advertisements. Its gotten so bad the NFL actually took notice that viewership is dropping.
ulfw 10y ago
So what differentiates them from HBO? I am confused. With HBO Go it's Cable going Internet and with Netflix it's Internet going Cable. Just that both distribute over the Web
- izacus 10y ago
  I can actually order and watch Netflix in EU (for 12EUR/month for 4k/HDR). I'm not allowed to pay for HBO Now (which is even more expensive at 15EUR/month and features only HBO shows) and HBO Go requires me to subscribe to a min 50EUR/month cable service full of crappy content.
- 27182818284 10y ago
  Well the gap is certainly smaller now, but remember there was a time not too long ago where HBO straight up refused to do online, stand-alone content. Sites like http://www.takemymoneyhbo.com/ http://www.takemymoneyhbo.com/ were started just by people who wanted to watch the content the way they already were on services like Netflix. The other thing that differentiates it from traditional cable is the experience. Because of a package deal, I also have cable for the next year, and it is bombed out and depleted. Not just in terms of content, but in terms of when that content is on and the very UX of the interface. The amount of lag changing channels on a modern digital receiver from a major cable company would get you fired as a web developer if your website lagged the same. It is truly remarkable.
- notatoad 10y ago
  There's a good Reed Hastings quote from a couple years ago: "Our job is to become HBO before HBO can become us". Seems like the market ended up about where he predicted. Netflix still has a huge advantage though, in that they are available internationally while HBO Now is only available in a handful of countries.
flexie 10y ago
To me, it seems like Hollywood is betting everything on 3D movies in the fantasy/superhero/werewolf/supernatural abilities/animated/zombie genre(s). That's roughly 3/4 of what the three cinema chains in my city show. That leaves some 25 percent to the remotely realistic movies - the ones with characters and stories that could be true, at least in a distant future. There are nights where the only movies the cinemas show, are fantastic ones. Where the only cinema experience would involve wearing 3D glasses and watching childish characters save the world. Personally, I am fine with the establishment taking some beating. But I sure hope there will be more than just a handful of providers of content. Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. That's not nearly enough.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  The landscape of video entertainment is being reshaped. Over the last two or three decades, content production has gotten much cheaper, easier and faster. In the last decade or so, content distribution has gotten cheaper, easier and faster. As a result, what we've called "television" is now a place where long-form dramatic stories can unfold. Since it's more affordable to produce, content which can appeal to smaller audiences can be created and marketed to those smaller audiences. Cinema is where the short-story of the video world now exists. While content distribution is easier, cinema is constrained by a finite number of theaters. Financing a motion picture is extremely conservative: if you don't have an established audience, you will have trouble getting funded. So now we see mostly adaptations, sequels, nostalgia-fests. I wouldn't say that a story has to have "stories that could be true" in order to be compelling and moving art. But the most compelling stories certainly tend to be set in the present with non-supernatural characters. > handful of providers of content. Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. That's not nearly enough. It seems like we're seeing a significant direct investment from content distributors directly into content production. I agree that it could be a bit of an oligopoly, but the fact that it's "easy" to make a content distribution enterprise (relative to how it was in 1910-2000) means that we have more entertainment choices now than ever before.
  - bhalperin 10y ago
    Know any good longreads on this?
JohnJamesRambo 10y ago
I don't want this. I just want them to make more good movies available. I don't like Netflix originals and I hate series type shows. I know everyone doesn't feel this way though.
lefstathiou 10y ago
Netflix was forced into this. For a while (I no longer look at the data) content costs were increasing at 8-10% per year which is unsustainable for distributors. The CEO of DISH once suggested on an earnings call that there should be anti trust inquiries into content pricing. Additionally, Netflix's international growth was hampered by their inability to efficiently negotiate international distribution rights.
- snarf21 10y ago
  Right, this is the whole end game. They own the content so they can sell it forever to everyone and their library only grows. The Studios and traditional movie powers saw all the interest and decided to squeeze out as much juice as they can. I wouldn't be surprised to see Netflix and Amazon eventually start releasing their movies to the theaters directly and then they later add it exclusively to their streaming platform.
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    They are already releasing movies to cinemas. Just the exclusive part isn't happening which made cinemas unhappy. I think they mainly release to cinemas to qualify for the Oscars.
    - nojvek 10y ago
      I wonder if I have a hd movie, how much does it cost to put them in the cinemas?
      - vermontdevil 10y ago
        https://drafthouse.com/news/see-your-film-on-the-big-screen-this-year-with-a-special-filmmaker-rental-o https://drafthouse.com/news/see-your-film-on-the-big-screen-... Seems the Drafthouse offers this deal.
  - runevault 10y ago
    I don't know who handled distribution but Manchester by the Sea was an Amazon original production that was in theaters but will be part of Prime Free streaming in a few months.
grabcocque 10y ago
The self-pitying language from Hollywood is hilarious. How DARE people want to work for Netflix intead of us, just because it pays better, is sexier and cooler, is technologically cutting edge, and allows much greater freedom from executive meddling? NOT COOL GUYS.
- mtgx 10y ago
  Sounds like it's time to do some anti-Netflix lobbying.
- josefresco 10y ago
  I was also amused by this quote: "You just can’t compete with someone coming in with fresh money, low overhead and a lot less baggage than you" Might as well just give up then right?
thirdsun 10y ago
I really hope they don't lose focus on the quality of their original content. I understand that not everything Netflix does is tailored to me, particularly due to Netflix' growing, increasingly mainstream audience, diverse and varying preferences, more ground to cover, etc. However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium. I'm not sure if classics like The Wire, The Sopranos or Mad Men could have been created with such a formulaic approach and I'm missing shows of that caliber on Netflix. Maybe the service should offer brillant content creators the freedom and opportunity to do the shows they want to do, instead of dictating the theme and framework.
- night815 10y ago
  What are some shows you like and don't like that Netflix made?
  - thirdsun 10y ago
    House Of Cards was very, very promising in its early seasons. It almost felt like a future alltime favorite, but declined after Season 1. Better Call Saul is shaping up very nicely and Fargo turned out to be better than I expected. Other than that there are many solid shows, and even more mediocre and lackluster ones I don't enjoy. However, that's not exactly my concern - I understand that only a subset of the content might appeal to me. The problem is that the part that does isn't on par with the very best the medium has to offer and I'm not sure if Netflix' current approach to content creation is a good approach to raise the quality.
    - ssully 10y ago
      Neither Better Call Saul or Fargo are made by Netflix. BCS is an AMC show and Fargo I believe is FX.
dghughes 10y ago
I'd settle for fewer shows with earlier release dates. It's crazy waiting over a year to watch the next season of a show. I guess I'm a dinosaur from the olden days of TV where once per week you watched a show. Then a break for summer and the new season started in the fall. These days it's binge watch an entire show and wait 18 months for the next season. I can't stand that who can sit still for that long? I bet Netflix would prefer a slower production and release schedule rather than a blast of a dozen episodes. Even the actors must hate that they must also have to wait until production starts again. Production quality is suffering too which may indicate shows are being made too fast. On Iron Fist I noticed in each episode a red laser dot and grid shining on the actors. And in one episode you could see water dripping off the camera lens housing.
- jcrei 10y ago
  The way they released "Designated Survivor" was similar to "old school" TV shows. With one episode per week being released. So I guess they are testing with that model
  - jghn 10y ago
    Designated Survivor is a show on NBC airing weekly, I don't get what you mean.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Netflix has distribution rights for it in many countries. Outside the US, with shows like this, they release it one episode at a time with some delay (days to weeks) from the initial US broadcast date.
      - jghn 10y ago
        Ah thanks, I had no idea
- sudhirj 10y ago
  A lot of stories seem to be written taking into account that kind of passage of time... Game of Thrones and Harry Potter is literally and figuratively the story of the characters growing up. Love on the other hand, is set immediately after season 1. Also, shows that run on a long or continuous schedule don't allow for the kind of care and polish - if you're churning out an episode a week, you can only do sitcom type stuff. No visual effects, no story arcs (too many actors come and go), no locations (can't spend all year outdoors). Doing seasons allows the team to get together, shoot for a few months and wrap, like a 10 hour movie. I think actors prefer few months of intense work per project a year, so they can do other stuff as well. If it's 3 to 5 days a week all year you're locked in too much.
deleted 10y ago
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jessriedel 10y ago
Re:paywall, the story is also syndicated on Business Standard. Here are the AMP https://www.google.com/amp/wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/international/netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating-hollywood-117032600023_1.html https://www.google.com/amp/wap.business-standard.com/article... and non-AMP versions http://wap.business-standard.com/article/international/netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating-hollywood-117032600023_1.html http://wap.business-standard.com/article/international/netfl...
- harperlee 10y ago
  I would suggest changing the link to one of these, as neither the original link nor the Google trick seems to work for me (also, the title change voids the usefulness of the 'web' link).
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Thanks, specifically for the non amp link.
1ba9115454 10y ago
For me the sweet spot is a season with around 10 episodes that tells a complete story. Bosch over on Amazon was pretty good.
rdlecler1 10y ago
I find it hard to believe that NetFlix should be worth $60b on $8b of revenue when Time-Warner (which owns HBO) has a $75B market cap in $25b of revenue. NetFlix had higher EPS in 2014 so scale is not a great argument here.
- mikulas_florek 10y ago
  Price of shares is often based on faith in future value, which I guess is higher in case of NetFlix.
junto 10y ago
I'm very much looking forward to when they finally release the second season of "The Expanse" and "Sense8". I don't understand why the Expanse series two is being held back from Europe. Is it already available on Netflix in the US?
- efficax 10y ago
  Expanse isn't on netflix in the US, at all. It's on Amazon Prime in the US, on a 1 season delay, or $3 per episode (only season 1 is available for free).
  - junto 10y ago
    In Germany, the first season was on Netflix. There is no Syfy channel here, so I'm not sure there is any way to get legally at the moment.
- pwinnski 10y ago
  Sense8 is created by Netflix, but The Expanse is not. Netflix has nothing to do with that show other than international (non-US) distribution.
- mkempe 10y ago
  The Expanse is a SyFy show. Season 2 hasn't yet been shown in its entirety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)
vwbuwvb 10y ago
great - because their originals are the only thing worth watching because their choice of non-netflix content is rubbish
deleted 10y ago
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matteuan 10y ago
From what I understood, Hollywood is complaining about positive competition. The prices are higher because there are few actors and scarcity of good staff, and this is a normal supply and demand reaction. So basically, they are complaining that there is a business model that works better than theirs.
Jedd 10y ago
> “You just can’t compete with someone coming in with fresh money, low overhead and a lot less baggage than you,” said Darrell Miller, an entertainment lawyer ... That's such a delicious juxtaposition of wistful observation, and observer's job title (or 'contribution to society' if you prefer).
ctdonath 10y ago
The promise of Netflix was "the long tail": an ultimate video library of all but perhaps the very latest content. I'm not interested in "Netflix originals". Focus on the core competency of archiving & delivery; let others make the content. I've worked at IBM, Smith Corona, Kodak, CNN, AT&T, others - a major takeaway is: businesses which don't stick to their core competency/purpose die.
- josefresco 10y ago
  Netflix has had several identities. I'm old enough to remember the DVD-by-mail service. Then for a period because they were small and growing, it was "long tail" content, and older content that has already been monetized. For me, the new "original content" Netflix is a logical evolution - why did you get stuck in the second identity? If Netflix stuck to it's core DVD mailing service it would be dead - why is this second evolution the wrong move?
  - ctdonath 10y ago
    My take is their DVD service was in recognition that they were an overly early mover: streaming content would be the dominant delivery service eventually, intended as their core competency, but they couldn't get there AND assure having a massive customer base without starting the (rather profitable, can't sneeze at that) DVD mailing service to get people on-board and ready to switch to streaming when the technology finally caught up. Methinks that's why they tried to sever the DVD service when streaming finally "arrived" - it's not what they wanted to do originally, it was just a means to an end. Netflix getting into the moviemaking business is like the Post Office getting into the magazine business.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  That's a surprising take-away for Kodak. As far as I understand, they died mostly because their core competency (film) became obsolete in a huge fragment of the market. I'm not saying that they could have successfully pivoted to digital, of course. But inability to pick up a new competency doesn't mean that the business won't die anyways... in which case, might as well try. IBM under-went a similar "try or die" evolution away from various computing technologies (punch card machines, then some number of generations of main frames) over the last century, with more success than Kodak. AT&T seems to be doing pretty well.
kingmanaz 10y ago
>Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquired programming in 2017 ...yet all I watched was Columbo, Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Murder She Wrote. If only some of this "original content" was original in being upbeat or uplifting.
jccalhoun 10y ago
Looking at this list, I haven't even heard of at least 1/5 of the English language shows Netflix already has released https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix#Acquisitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...
shmerl 10y ago
They also supposedly are becoming more paranoid and legacy media like (piracy!! and the like). Influence and size corrupts.
6stringmerc 10y ago
As a writer, I want as much industry competition inflating screenwriting demand and prices accordingly. If it ever gets unsustainable, okay, I'm sure the market will react accordingly. For now though, I think it's a great time to be in Content Creation and what Netflix is doing is, no doubt, certainly one definition of "industry disruption" that gets noted frequently. Messy business, that, and risky, but here we are and Netflix is still chugging along.
- dmix 10y ago
  > For now though, I think it's a great time to be in Content Creation Do you have to be in LA to do this for a living still?
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Fundamental answer is yes, as I'm not doing it for a living nor living in LA, but working through other Digital / International Channels and markets for work, options, opportunities, etc. LA will probably always be the capital of US film though. It took a lot of effort to move all the way out there to avoid paying patent royalties. The business is super entrenched there - Netflix and Amazon barely put a dent in the grand scheme of productions made annually though (then again, Bollywood cranks out more than Hollywood nowadays).
literallycancer 10y ago
Too bad the quality is pretty bad[1], even with the most expensive subscription. I'm surprised people don't mind somehow. Perhaps most of their users are watching the content on laptops? And since you can only watch it in the browser, you can't use things like madVR or frame interpolation tools to get smoother panning scenes. 1 - Even a blu ray rip of around 3GB looks better. Think a 2 to 2.5 hour movie.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
I think Netflix is diluting the quality of their original content in the race of creating more and more minutes. Initial Netflix offerings like House of Cards were awesome, it has gone downhill since then. The Marvel offerings are awfully slow paced and boring (except maybe season one of Daredevil). I've been on the verge of cancelling my Netflix subscription recently and will probably do unless they significantly improve their original content.
- ConceptJunkie 10y ago
  I disagree with your assessment of the pacing of the other Marvel shows... not the slow part, they are slow, but that it's boring. I watched "Iron Fist" over the last several days and I found the pacing refreshing. It was very much character-driven, rather than action driven, but there were all kinds of twists and turns that kept it from being boring. Ditto for "Luke Cage" which I'm partway through. Yes, I loved the first season of Daredevil, too, especially with its more Hong Kong style fight scenes, whereas Iron Fist's were more of the up-close quick-edit American style, but it was a really good show nonetheless.
irishloop 10y ago
I'm amazed how many people on HN complain about the content on Netflix. Especially compared to any other streaming service, such as Amazon or Hulu, they continue to provide much higher-end content for my dollar, as well as a (far) superior UI experience. For me, the stand-up specials like Dave Chapelle and Louis CK alone are huge and welcome additions, never mind the many, very good lesser known comedy specials on there. Their agreement with Dreamworks has only helped, allowing me to enjoy surprisingly good films like Zootopia. Even great cable channels like FX (The Americans, Legion) and AMC (Mad Men, Better Call Saul) are not available for any reasonable price as standalone cable packages, so I'm not sure what the comparison is in terms of quality. HBO at 15/month? But even HBO shows are hit-or-miss. And while their movie selection is generally pretty great, I still find myself not watching it all that much. It seems to me that Netflix provides a pretty high level of content at their price point.
- phamilton 10y ago
  Just FYI, Zootopia is Disney.
- ninv 10y ago
  Netflix has awful user interface. I found out that i waste 15 to 20 min everyday browsing the same movies which i have rejected previously. There is no way to hide a movie. If you start hiding the movies on Netflix, you will find that there is actually no new stuff to watch most of the time. Also their rating system is horrible, they should tie up with Rotten tomatoes for actual rating.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - UnfalseDesign 10y ago
    They are currently in the process of updating their rating system. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14952434/netflix-five-star-ratings-going-away-thumbs-up-down http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14952434/netflix-five-star...
tboyd47 10y ago
> TV stars are demanding “movie star” salaries of some $250,000 per episode when they previously were content with half that One major result of Netflix's rise is that the TV format for entertainment is starting to be seen as on par with or better than the feature film format. There's something obvious about this from a viewer's standpoint. People are naturally drawn to abundance and regularity. Rather than having 100 discussions about which movie to watch together with my wife over the course of a year, then find that only 20 or so of them are on Netflix, and maybe 5 of them turn out to be stinkers, we can simply pick a show we both know is about a B+, and watch 100 episodes, not ever being disappointed. Also, if I watch the pilot of a great show, then I know I have a whole season to go through, with days of entertainment. If I watch a great movie, then welp, I've just watched a great movie and maybe in a few years there will be a sequel. From an artistic standpoint, there are freedoms that open up due to having established characters, routine plot conventions, etc. There was an article on HN a while back where Conan O'Brien mentioned that this is why he did exactly the same walk to the stage every single night, or something of that nature.
- qznc 10y ago
  > watch 100 episodes, not ever being disappointed Well, except for the last season. I have yet to see a series where the last season was the same quality as the rest.
  - ghshephard 10y ago
    Breaking Bad. Personally found it the most rewarding (by far), and, from Wikipedia: (Season 5) After receiving three nominations for seasons two, three, and four, both halves of season five won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. The second half of the season also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2014. The season's Metacritic score of 99/100 led the show to be listed in Guinness World Records as the most acclaimed television series in history.[5]
  - jeffmcjunkin 10y ago
    Well, except for Firefly :(
smaili 10y ago
I wonder if their focus on original content will open the door for a Blockbuster-like revival. It was nice growing up knowing there was always a reliable place filled with the latest movie releases as well as all of the classics.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I wonder if their focus on original content will open the door for a Blockbuster-like revival. No, their focus on original content is entirely because once you have a situation where other content producers are cognizant of the proven value of streaming and their is robust competition in streaming, it's no longer practically possible to have a profitable one-step shop for high-value content from other owners' catalogs, since the high-deductible content is either being used to secure exclusive deals for the highest bidder or held back to anchor the content owner's own streaming service. The same thing happened with HBO once it proved the value of cable as a premium content delivery venue.
deegles 10y ago
We've already hit "peak content" for Netflix, which I define as "more hours of new content released that I'll watch in a year." I would estimate I watch about 200 hours a year, Netflix is releasing 1,000 hours of content this year[0]. This trend will only accelerate, especially considering all of the other providers pouring money into content. I wish that video content licensing could be regulated similar to radio music, where the license holder receives a flat rate per play (this could be adjusted to be per-minute with modifiers for SD/HD/etc). That would open up a whole new market of streaming websites that could focus on cataloging and recommending content, instead of me having to pay for many websites full of content that I cannot physically spend the time to find the best of. Some streaming devices have cross-service search functionality built in, but it could be much better. [0] http://bgr.com/2016/10/19/netflix-originals-1000-hours-programming/ http://bgr.com/2016/10/19/netflix-originals-1000-hours-progr...
- e40 10y ago
  That may be true, but there aren't more hours of content I care to watch. I often can't find anything to watch on Netflix, because I'm picky. I welcome them spending more on content, then I might be able to find something to watch.
JackFr 10y ago
The Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events was orders of magnitude better than theatrically released abomination starring Jim Carrey.
JCharante 10y ago
Too bad most of their original & acquired programming is terrible.
hkmurakami 10y ago
As the HBO CEO once said, (and I paraphrase) 'It's a race between whether HBO can become Netflix faster [1] or Netflix can become HBO faster[2]' [1] distribution [2] original content
- jerhinesmith 10y ago
  I think it was Netflix that said that: https://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hbo-faster-than-hbo-can-become-us https://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hb...
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Whoops appreciate the correction!
  - deleted 10y ago
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MisterBastahrd 10y ago
IMO, the best sort of series are miniseries. Tell your story and be done with it. I'd rather remember something for how great it was than how great its decline was.
krupan 10y ago
But I still can't stream Goonies.
Keyframe 10y ago
At $2-3m (double on the high end and established) production cost per episode of anything, we're looking at a massive amount of TV content. Unless they opt for films - if so, good luck.
nilanjonB 10y ago
I wonder what bump in revenue streams they are expecting to justify billions in programming every year.
echelon 10y ago
Is there room for new challengers in this space, or are all of the media incumbents going to lock down the rest of the digital entertainment space? I live in Atlanta, and the cost of production here is much cheaper than California. I've been mulling over the merits of someone here launching a streaming platform for some of the locally-produced content.
anothercomment 10y ago
I often find it a bit funny when the streaming providers advertise their exclusive content. As if it was a bonus for subscribers, when really it is part of their fight for becoming a monopoly and tying users to them. Best for users would be to have all content available everywhere, not having to subscribe to multiple streaming providers. That said, if that is the game they have to play, I am happy if at least it results in some worthwhile series.
mschuster91 10y ago
Happy Netflix user but the quality especially of old-ish series is beyond infuriating. I have untouched-DVD rips from Star Trek Voyager. Single episodes run around 2 GB of data, while the same Netflix episodes are ~200MB. Not only does Netflix not carry the bonus stuff, but the quality is seriously braindead - weird moire effects in the intro, for example, and it just looks pixelated. In fact, the "scene rips" tend to look better than what Netflix offers! And it's certainly not due to low network quality, I've got a 100/20 connection and stuff like Shadowhunters is clear HD.
deleted 10y ago
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TylerH 10y ago
I love Netflix, but they really need to invest in some more depth for the UI. Let me curate my own lists and my own history per profile, including removing stuff from dynamic lists. I don't want to have to go into my account settings (something only the account owner can do) to remove recently watched items from my account history and then have to wait 24 hours for it to actually happen. Let me build new lists and manually dump a tv show or movie into them. Let me search all offerings, sortable and filterable alphabetically and/or by release date. Let me view my profile's total viewing history if I'm interested. Even for titles that are no longer viewable on Netflix. A neat feature would be to group these by title. So you can show just "The Office" or "Game of Thrones" or "The West Wing", which can be expanded to a list of seasons, each of which can be expanded to a list of episodes, showing which ones I've watched and which ones I haven't. --- --- --- As enjoyable and useful as Netflix is, the fact that it still remains essentially a completely non-customizable list of "what's popular" is just incredibly lazy on their part.
- deleted 10y ago
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jordanpg 10y ago
Whatever you might think about their streaming listings, their DVD listings still contain virtually everything, and they stay there indefinitely. And yet I hear that their DVD business is hemorrhaging cash and has numbered days. This DVD business is the only place I am aware of for renting a great many movies. RedBox has very limited offerings. If it ever does fold, consider that for movies that don't appear in anyone's streaming catalog or a catalog you subscribe to, the only other (legal) option you'll have is to buy the DVD somewhere. I don't know what things will look like in 10 years technologically, but if the Netflix DVD business ever goes away, there will be movies that are permanently inaccessible for rental.
thomastjeffery 10y ago
I'm happy about the prospect of Hollywood's death, but I'm disappointed with Netflix's current direction. Since House of Cards they have been creating fantastic quality work, but due to senseless DRM constraints, I can't even watch any of it in 4k without spending ~$100 on specialized hardware, even though my PC is more than proficient enough at video playback.

440 points by jaimefjorge 10y ago

That's about $65/member per year at most current count of ~92m members. (1) https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/business/netflix-profit-rises-56-percent-to-67-million.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/business/netflix-profi...

ceejayoz 10y ago
Not a bad return, considering it'll sit their library forever.
- meric 10y ago
  If they ever give up the digital platform they can still license this content out, sell DVD's...
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    And they definitely do product placement.
    - manmal 10y ago
      Yes, I think "Love" season 2 has a subtitle in the beginning that says so.
      - ClassyJacket 10y ago
        Also the fact that every second line of the script was obviously an ad for a certain ride sharing company.
        rhino369 10y ago
        The first time a character said "I'll get us an uber" it was pretty realistic for a millennial. But it got annoying the 8th time it happened.
    - vonzeppelin 10y ago
      Is that a PS Vita?

Belphemur 10y ago

When you see that the content holder make it harder and harder for Netflix to license their content, it makes senses to invest so much money on creating their own content. It seems in the end, we're really returning to the cable era. Be ready for packages giving you access to Netflix, Amazon, and channels...

thinkMOAR 10y ago
For what i know, that is already happening in NL with HBO Go. It disappeared from the market as separate, independent service and now only available via bundle package of one of NLs largest cable providers, Ziggo.
- menacingly 10y ago
  At least in the states, HBO Go was always bundled with a cable subscription. HBO Now is the standalone streaming product, although standalone is a bit of a stretch because it's frustratingly tied to some other platform's billing system.
- mason55 10y ago
  Ziggo also replaced their in house streaming service with Netflix directly on the cable boxes because there was no chance of them being able to compete. I believe Liberty Global (the worlds largest cable company and owners of Ziggo) is planning to do the same across Europe.
mathattack 10y ago
I think that Netflix (and Amazon) is trying to create enough content that you don't need anyone else. That would certainly justify their spending, and give them tremendous leverage against the other players.
- LordKano 10y ago
  It also puts them in a better negotiating position. They still want and need the content but if they're producing their own, it allows them to be more selective in what they take on.

Fishman343 10y ago

I thought this number seemed absolutely nuts to begin with, but actually, given their ~100 million subscribers, it's pretty much inline with what the BBC might spend in the same sort of set up. As an observer, what still seems odd to me is the low number of shows or movies they are producing with that massive budget - last year "The Get Down" apparently cost $16 million per episode while the entire, huge hit, first season of "Stranger Things" cost $13 million. I would have thought that would inspire them to look for more of these low budget, low risk, big payoff shows, especially when you run a subscription service - surely a series that people binge over 2 weeks, with the potential for more seasons to keep people subscribing is better for you than a one time film? Nope, $100 Million on a single film this year.

harigov 10y ago
Well, Netflix is one of the most data driven companies we know of. Maybe they see something that we don't? Also, some stories inherently require significant amount of money to produce and there is nothing that you can do about it. Sure you can avoid spending money on such shows, but the last thing you want is to be known for your low quality shows.
- Fishman343 10y ago
  Yes, I think you're right, it's probably better to be known for your 1 or 2 high quality hits and take a few losses overall, than to be known for low quality shows. That on top of the fact they can use data to minimise the risk must mean it's a realistic option.
xienze 10y ago
> As an observer, what still seems odd to me is the low number of shows or movies they are producing with that massive budget - last year "The Get Down" apparently cost $16 million per episode while the entire, huge hit, first season of "Stranger Things" cost $13 million. You think that's crazy? They paid Dave Chappelle $60 million for _3 standup specials_.
- 10y ago

malloryerik 10y ago

Dear Netflix: New Game of Thrones series, pleaze!

malloryerik 10y ago
Just playing...

michaelmcneff 10y ago

Long shot, but if anyone from Netflix sees this, I'm looking for finishing funds to complete one of Sir Christopher Lee's last films, The Hunting of the Snark, based on the Lewis Carroll story and I would be happy to exclusively license it to Netflix. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887901/?ref_=nv_sr_1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1887901/?ref_=nv_sr_1

harigov 10y ago
I am surprised that you would have to post it here. Don't they already provide some way to contact them? Given the small number of movies and shows that get produced, I expect that they would have responded to everyone.
- michaelmcneff 10y ago
  As far as I know, there isn't an open channel to pitch projects to Netflix. This is because 1) they would get overwhelmed by pitches for projects and 2) because most studios don't accept unsolicited pitches for legal reasons (so that someone who sent them a pitch doesn't later sue Netflix for producing a similar project. So I think you still have to go the more traditional route of knowing someone within the Netflix development department that you can pitch your project to. Or your agent/manager/producer will need to have that connection to get you in the door. I've been stuck in indie film limbo trying to finish this film because it has a lot of complicated visual effects (which are close to being finished) so I currently don't have a manager or agent who can help to get me in the door at Netflix.
  - Quarrelsome 10y ago
    have you considered trying to find out who in that department has recently _left_ Netflix? That way you can pretend you were in touch with them thereby promoting you from unsolicited to solicited.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      ...Yeah, and when that comes out, how will that end for you?

erelde 10y ago

That's 1.3 shows a week. 15 hours. Podcasts and tv blogs will have work for quite some time.

bby 10y ago

Damn. They are going all in. I pay for netflix but haven't watched anything in like a year. God damn. O: Who else is in the same boat?

sgwealti 10y ago

Hopefully they'll green-light another season of MST3K.

ConceptJunkie 10y ago
Joel has stated that there's a good chance we'll see a Season 12. :-) He didn't give specifics (as usual), but it makes me happy.

yk 10y ago

Well, the sane way to distribute content when the only thing that has non-negligible costs is production, not distribution, [1] is to have some kind of infrastructure provider that provides distribution and billing and finances production. However having a monopoly has ugly economic effects and having a single entity that dictates media production has ugly social effects. I guess both Amazon and Netflix try to capture precisely that role, in that case they could charge almost whatever they want while they are not forced by competition to have high quality (and therefore expensive) content. Plus I am afraid that the market tends to produce a monopoly, because a individual subscriber will look for the service that has more content. [1] Hetzner currently charges EUR 1.40 / TB of additional traffic, so marginal distribution costs are in the range of EUR 10^-3 / Movie.

merb 10y ago
> Hetzner currently charges EUR 1.40 / TB of additional traffic, so marginal distribution costs are in the range of EUR 10^-3 / Movie. you can't just use the traffic cost. also if they would on hetzner, their network would be so bad that nobody could've watch netflix. (not that the hetzner network is bad, but it wouldn't withstand the amount of traffic from netflix (especially inter-region traffic is not as cheap as it could be, and also they need to talk with amazon/google about their traffic ("public pricing" is 0,01 USD per GB))) also there are other things that needs to be paid, servers, developers and other staff and stuff. it's not just that you write 20 lines of code and put it on hetzner and can scale globally.
- yk 10y ago
  Of course not, but I am only using Hetzner as some measure of current network costs, because I know Hetzner pricing quite well. So of course I would additionally need server costs, staff, and so on. But if we assume that everything included we end up at a order of magnitude more, your .01 USD/GB, that is still a movie a day for the entire month before we really have to worry about distribution.
chatmasta 10y ago
I'll let you in on a little secret: paying for bandwidth per usage is for suckers. People think this is the only way to pay for bandwidth, but it's really only cloud providers who charge like that (and make a fortune off the racket). If you buy bandwidth from upstream IP transit providers, or rent a server in almost any non-cloud datacenter, you pay for capacity (e.g. $0.50 / Mbps), not usage. That is, you pay for the size of the pipe, not the amount of data going through it. Once you factor in optimizations like peering with ISPs and cross connect caching, bandwidth costs go way down. Also, in Netflix's case, they have a box containing terabytes of their most popular content sitting in almost every datacenter and peering with all major ISPs and backbone providers sharing the cross connect: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

barking 10y ago

looked interesting, shame it's paywalled

jessaustin 10y ago
Just install the bookmarklet referenced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13964395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13964395
- barking 10y ago
  Thank you
jrullman 10y ago
If you use Chrome, try this extension — https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xray/dgkdfehohjdbmnldpcegekjakcdjlnkg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xray/dgkdfehohjdbm...
- barking 10y ago
  That's great, thank you very much for making this

meesterdude 10y ago

I've liked some of netflix's original content - house of cards was the first - but a LOT of it is trash too. I don't doubt they have numbers that lead them to create these shows... but i question the scale of it sometimes. Of the netflix originals, i've only enjoyed a handful. Meanwhile, I've enjoyed a number of "low-budget" shows they've had (like ice pilots) and a number of the kung-fu movies they have available. But to be fair, a LOT of the low-budget stuff they have is trash too. It's clear (to me) that there is some effort to pad their content, to seem like they have a fuller collection, even if it's only a collection a raccoon would love. This, taken with the idea they tote of "having only the best performing people" displays a mismatch in cultural ideas and actual output. For me, I want netflix to succeed because another content producer is a welcome addition to the scene, and i hope they stay independent and don't get bought up by disney. I know in a few years they'll have a collection of original content to rival the older players.

TulliusCicero 10y ago
> Of the netflix originals, i've only enjoyed a handful. > It's clear (to me) that there is some effort to pad their content OR, they're just targeting demographics that don't include you. "I don't enjoy [thing] therefore it's padding" seems like kind of an ego-centric worldview to me. Haven't they even talked about how not having a fixed number of viewing hours means they can more easily target niche audiences?
- nickonline 10y ago
  They've talked about making content for $100k that a small number watch and making content for $5M that a number 500x that watch. They know exactly what they're doing and every comment on this article in HN right now shows you that. One person says they hate something and it's crap and the next person tells them that they're wrong. Entertainment is subjective netflix has numbers to back up their spends.
shawabawa3 10y ago
Bear in mind that 90% of "regular" TV is trash (to me), but a huge number of people enjoy it. They aren't just padding their content, they're also catering to a wide audience, which means lots of people will hate lots of their content, but lots of people will also like some of their content

barking 10y ago

I got rid of sky last year. I was paying a multiple of what netflix costs and had to put up with what seemed like 5 minutes of ads for every 10 minutes of a show. It made GOT completely unwatchable. I am under no illusions about how netflix might behave if they ever achieve a monolithic dominance but so far it's great.

exar0815 10y ago
Sky is a useless hog of idiocy, just selling lots and lots of advertising. Most cringeworthy thing to tell about is Sky Bundesliga (the german soccer league). Its the only way to see the most popular sport in germany. You pay for Sky Entertainment, which you MUST have to get the basic soccer package (no other sports or international soccer) which already amounts to a whopping 42€/Month. When you have that, you can either watch via Cable at your specific address, or can use the abysmal Sky Go system. That runs on Silverlight(sic!) and allows only 3 different devices in 6 Months to connect. When you surpassed THOSE hurdles, you need to hope that Silverlight works on your OS (good luck Linux), doesn't crap out (what a coincidence with unmaintained software). Then you can watch the "Game". Except the commercials extend to 30s before the ref starts the game, during the game you get 2-3 times a framed commercial, the commenting person has to advertise multiple of sky's services during the game, the half time is 12 out of 15 minutes commercials, and the second half is the same. Disgusting. The 2-3 games a year I watch, I freely admit to using other means of watching.
- barking 10y ago
  Sounds about right and that is what will kill it I think. I'd probably still be a customer but for the ads. When I first got sky I naively thought it would have none. But in fact Sky has more ads than free-to-air commercial tv in the UK does. .
- justaman 10y ago
  You should see how bad American Football is. $50 USD for "Sunday Ticket" and literally half the game is advertisements. Its gotten so bad the NFL actually took notice that viewership is dropping.

ulfw 10y ago

So what differentiates them from HBO? I am confused. With HBO Go it's Cable going Internet and with Netflix it's Internet going Cable. Just that both distribute over the Web

izacus 10y ago
I can actually order and watch Netflix in EU (for 12EUR/month for 4k/HDR). I'm not allowed to pay for HBO Now (which is even more expensive at 15EUR/month and features only HBO shows) and HBO Go requires me to subscribe to a min 50EUR/month cable service full of crappy content.
27182818284 10y ago
Well the gap is certainly smaller now, but remember there was a time not too long ago where HBO straight up refused to do online, stand-alone content. Sites like http://www.takemymoneyhbo.com/ http://www.takemymoneyhbo.com/ were started just by people who wanted to watch the content the way they already were on services like Netflix. The other thing that differentiates it from traditional cable is the experience. Because of a package deal, I also have cable for the next year, and it is bombed out and depleted. Not just in terms of content, but in terms of when that content is on and the very UX of the interface. The amount of lag changing channels on a modern digital receiver from a major cable company would get you fired as a web developer if your website lagged the same. It is truly remarkable.
notatoad 10y ago
There's a good Reed Hastings quote from a couple years ago: "Our job is to become HBO before HBO can become us". Seems like the market ended up about where he predicted. Netflix still has a huge advantage though, in that they are available internationally while HBO Now is only available in a handful of countries.

flexie 10y ago

To me, it seems like Hollywood is betting everything on 3D movies in the fantasy/superhero/werewolf/supernatural abilities/animated/zombie genre(s). That's roughly 3/4 of what the three cinema chains in my city show. That leaves some 25 percent to the remotely realistic movies - the ones with characters and stories that could be true, at least in a distant future. There are nights where the only movies the cinemas show, are fantastic ones. Where the only cinema experience would involve wearing 3D glasses and watching childish characters save the world. Personally, I am fine with the establishment taking some beating. But I sure hope there will be more than just a handful of providers of content. Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. That's not nearly enough.

wyldfire 10y ago
The landscape of video entertainment is being reshaped. Over the last two or three decades, content production has gotten much cheaper, easier and faster. In the last decade or so, content distribution has gotten cheaper, easier and faster. As a result, what we've called "television" is now a place where long-form dramatic stories can unfold. Since it's more affordable to produce, content which can appeal to smaller audiences can be created and marketed to those smaller audiences. Cinema is where the short-story of the video world now exists. While content distribution is easier, cinema is constrained by a finite number of theaters. Financing a motion picture is extremely conservative: if you don't have an established audience, you will have trouble getting funded. So now we see mostly adaptations, sequels, nostalgia-fests. I wouldn't say that a story has to have "stories that could be true" in order to be compelling and moving art. But the most compelling stories certainly tend to be set in the present with non-supernatural characters. > handful of providers of content. Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. That's not nearly enough. It seems like we're seeing a significant direct investment from content distributors directly into content production. I agree that it could be a bit of an oligopoly, but the fact that it's "easy" to make a content distribution enterprise (relative to how it was in 1910-2000) means that we have more entertainment choices now than ever before.
- bhalperin 10y ago
  Know any good longreads on this?

JohnJamesRambo 10y ago

I don't want this. I just want them to make more good movies available. I don't like Netflix originals and I hate series type shows. I know everyone doesn't feel this way though.

lefstathiou 10y ago

Netflix was forced into this. For a while (I no longer look at the data) content costs were increasing at 8-10% per year which is unsustainable for distributors. The CEO of DISH once suggested on an earnings call that there should be anti trust inquiries into content pricing. Additionally, Netflix's international growth was hampered by their inability to efficiently negotiate international distribution rights.

snarf21 10y ago
Right, this is the whole end game. They own the content so they can sell it forever to everyone and their library only grows. The Studios and traditional movie powers saw all the interest and decided to squeeze out as much juice as they can. I wouldn't be surprised to see Netflix and Amazon eventually start releasing their movies to the theaters directly and then they later add it exclusively to their streaming platform.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  They are already releasing movies to cinemas. Just the exclusive part isn't happening which made cinemas unhappy. I think they mainly release to cinemas to qualify for the Oscars.
  - nojvek 10y ago
    I wonder if I have a hd movie, how much does it cost to put them in the cinemas?
    - vermontdevil 10y ago
      https://drafthouse.com/news/see-your-film-on-the-big-screen-this-year-with-a-special-filmmaker-rental-o https://drafthouse.com/news/see-your-film-on-the-big-screen-... Seems the Drafthouse offers this deal.
- runevault 10y ago
  I don't know who handled distribution but Manchester by the Sea was an Amazon original production that was in theaters but will be part of Prime Free streaming in a few months.

grabcocque 10y ago

The self-pitying language from Hollywood is hilarious. How DARE people want to work for Netflix intead of us, just because it pays better, is sexier and cooler, is technologically cutting edge, and allows much greater freedom from executive meddling? NOT COOL GUYS.

mtgx 10y ago
Sounds like it's time to do some anti-Netflix lobbying.
josefresco 10y ago
I was also amused by this quote: "You just can’t compete with someone coming in with fresh money, low overhead and a lot less baggage than you" Might as well just give up then right?

thirdsun 10y ago

I really hope they don't lose focus on the quality of their original content. I understand that not everything Netflix does is tailored to me, particularly due to Netflix' growing, increasingly mainstream audience, diverse and varying preferences, more ground to cover, etc. However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium. I'm not sure if classics like The Wire, The Sopranos or Mad Men could have been created with such a formulaic approach and I'm missing shows of that caliber on Netflix. Maybe the service should offer brillant content creators the freedom and opportunity to do the shows they want to do, instead of dictating the theme and framework.

night815 10y ago
What are some shows you like and don't like that Netflix made?
- thirdsun 10y ago
  House Of Cards was very, very promising in its early seasons. It almost felt like a future alltime favorite, but declined after Season 1. Better Call Saul is shaping up very nicely and Fargo turned out to be better than I expected. Other than that there are many solid shows, and even more mediocre and lackluster ones I don't enjoy. However, that's not exactly my concern - I understand that only a subset of the content might appeal to me. The problem is that the part that does isn't on par with the very best the medium has to offer and I'm not sure if Netflix' current approach to content creation is a good approach to raise the quality.
  - ssully 10y ago
    Neither Better Call Saul or Fargo are made by Netflix. BCS is an AMC show and Fargo I believe is FX.

dghughes 10y ago

I'd settle for fewer shows with earlier release dates. It's crazy waiting over a year to watch the next season of a show. I guess I'm a dinosaur from the olden days of TV where once per week you watched a show. Then a break for summer and the new season started in the fall. These days it's binge watch an entire show and wait 18 months for the next season. I can't stand that who can sit still for that long? I bet Netflix would prefer a slower production and release schedule rather than a blast of a dozen episodes. Even the actors must hate that they must also have to wait until production starts again. Production quality is suffering too which may indicate shows are being made too fast. On Iron Fist I noticed in each episode a red laser dot and grid shining on the actors. And in one episode you could see water dripping off the camera lens housing.

jcrei 10y ago
The way they released "Designated Survivor" was similar to "old school" TV shows. With one episode per week being released. So I guess they are testing with that model
- jghn 10y ago
  Designated Survivor is a show on NBC airing weekly, I don't get what you mean.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Netflix has distribution rights for it in many countries. Outside the US, with shows like this, they release it one episode at a time with some delay (days to weeks) from the initial US broadcast date.
    - jghn 10y ago
      Ah thanks, I had no idea
sudhirj 10y ago
A lot of stories seem to be written taking into account that kind of passage of time... Game of Thrones and Harry Potter is literally and figuratively the story of the characters growing up. Love on the other hand, is set immediately after season 1. Also, shows that run on a long or continuous schedule don't allow for the kind of care and polish - if you're churning out an episode a week, you can only do sitcom type stuff. No visual effects, no story arcs (too many actors come and go), no locations (can't spend all year outdoors). Doing seasons allows the team to get together, shoot for a few months and wrap, like a 10 hour movie. I think actors prefer few months of intense work per project a year, so they can do other stuff as well. If it's 3 to 5 days a week all year you're locked in too much.

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jessriedel 10y ago

Re:paywall, the story is also syndicated on Business Standard. Here are the AMP https://www.google.com/amp/wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/international/netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating-hollywood-117032600023_1.html https://www.google.com/amp/wap.business-standard.com/article... and non-AMP versions http://wap.business-standard.com/article/international/netflix-the-monster-that-s-eating-hollywood-117032600023_1.html http://wap.business-standard.com/article/international/netfl...

harperlee 10y ago
I would suggest changing the link to one of these, as neither the original link nor the Google trick seems to work for me (also, the title change voids the usefulness of the 'web' link).
Neliquat 10y ago
Thanks, specifically for the non amp link.

1ba9115454 10y ago

For me the sweet spot is a season with around 10 episodes that tells a complete story. Bosch over on Amazon was pretty good.

rdlecler1 10y ago

I find it hard to believe that NetFlix should be worth $60b on $8b of revenue when Time-Warner (which owns HBO) has a $75B market cap in $25b of revenue. NetFlix had higher EPS in 2014 so scale is not a great argument here.

mikulas_florek 10y ago
Price of shares is often based on faith in future value, which I guess is higher in case of NetFlix.

junto 10y ago

I'm very much looking forward to when they finally release the second season of "The Expanse" and "Sense8". I don't understand why the Expanse series two is being held back from Europe. Is it already available on Netflix in the US?

efficax 10y ago
Expanse isn't on netflix in the US, at all. It's on Amazon Prime in the US, on a 1 season delay, or $3 per episode (only season 1 is available for free).
- junto 10y ago
  In Germany, the first season was on Netflix. There is no Syfy channel here, so I'm not sure there is any way to get legally at the moment.
pwinnski 10y ago
Sense8 is created by Netflix, but The Expanse is not. Netflix has nothing to do with that show other than international (non-US) distribution.
mkempe 10y ago
The Expanse is a SyFy show. Season 2 hasn't yet been shown in its entirety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)

vwbuwvb 10y ago

great - because their originals are the only thing worth watching because their choice of non-netflix content is rubbish

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matteuan 10y ago

From what I understood, Hollywood is complaining about positive competition. The prices are higher because there are few actors and scarcity of good staff, and this is a normal supply and demand reaction. So basically, they are complaining that there is a business model that works better than theirs.

Jedd 10y ago

> “You just can’t compete with someone coming in with fresh money, low overhead and a lot less baggage than you,” said Darrell Miller, an entertainment lawyer ... That's such a delicious juxtaposition of wistful observation, and observer's job title (or 'contribution to society' if you prefer).

ctdonath 10y ago

The promise of Netflix was "the long tail": an ultimate video library of all but perhaps the very latest content. I'm not interested in "Netflix originals". Focus on the core competency of archiving & delivery; let others make the content. I've worked at IBM, Smith Corona, Kodak, CNN, AT&T, others - a major takeaway is: businesses which don't stick to their core competency/purpose die.

josefresco 10y ago
Netflix has had several identities. I'm old enough to remember the DVD-by-mail service. Then for a period because they were small and growing, it was "long tail" content, and older content that has already been monetized. For me, the new "original content" Netflix is a logical evolution - why did you get stuck in the second identity? If Netflix stuck to it's core DVD mailing service it would be dead - why is this second evolution the wrong move?
- ctdonath 10y ago
  My take is their DVD service was in recognition that they were an overly early mover: streaming content would be the dominant delivery service eventually, intended as their core competency, but they couldn't get there AND assure having a massive customer base without starting the (rather profitable, can't sneeze at that) DVD mailing service to get people on-board and ready to switch to streaming when the technology finally caught up. Methinks that's why they tried to sever the DVD service when streaming finally "arrived" - it's not what they wanted to do originally, it was just a means to an end. Netflix getting into the moviemaking business is like the Post Office getting into the magazine business.
throwaway729 10y ago
That's a surprising take-away for Kodak. As far as I understand, they died mostly because their core competency (film) became obsolete in a huge fragment of the market. I'm not saying that they could have successfully pivoted to digital, of course. But inability to pick up a new competency doesn't mean that the business won't die anyways... in which case, might as well try. IBM under-went a similar "try or die" evolution away from various computing technologies (punch card machines, then some number of generations of main frames) over the last century, with more success than Kodak. AT&T seems to be doing pretty well.

kingmanaz 10y ago

>Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquired programming in 2017 ...yet all I watched was Columbo, Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Murder She Wrote. If only some of this "original content" was original in being upbeat or uplifting.

jccalhoun 10y ago

Looking at this list, I haven't even heard of at least 1/5 of the English language shows Netflix already has released https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix#Acquisitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...

shmerl 10y ago

They also supposedly are becoming more paranoid and legacy media like (piracy!! and the like). Influence and size corrupts.

6stringmerc 10y ago

As a writer, I want as much industry competition inflating screenwriting demand and prices accordingly. If it ever gets unsustainable, okay, I'm sure the market will react accordingly. For now though, I think it's a great time to be in Content Creation and what Netflix is doing is, no doubt, certainly one definition of "industry disruption" that gets noted frequently. Messy business, that, and risky, but here we are and Netflix is still chugging along.

dmix 10y ago
> For now though, I think it's a great time to be in Content Creation Do you have to be in LA to do this for a living still?
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  Fundamental answer is yes, as I'm not doing it for a living nor living in LA, but working through other Digital / International Channels and markets for work, options, opportunities, etc. LA will probably always be the capital of US film though. It took a lot of effort to move all the way out there to avoid paying patent royalties. The business is super entrenched there - Netflix and Amazon barely put a dent in the grand scheme of productions made annually though (then again, Bollywood cranks out more than Hollywood nowadays).

literallycancer 10y ago

Too bad the quality is pretty bad[1], even with the most expensive subscription. I'm surprised people don't mind somehow. Perhaps most of their users are watching the content on laptops? And since you can only watch it in the browser, you can't use things like madVR or frame interpolation tools to get smoother panning scenes. 1 - Even a blu ray rip of around 3GB looks better. Think a 2 to 2.5 hour movie.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

I think Netflix is diluting the quality of their original content in the race of creating more and more minutes. Initial Netflix offerings like House of Cards were awesome, it has gone downhill since then. The Marvel offerings are awfully slow paced and boring (except maybe season one of Daredevil). I've been on the verge of cancelling my Netflix subscription recently and will probably do unless they significantly improve their original content.

ConceptJunkie 10y ago
I disagree with your assessment of the pacing of the other Marvel shows... not the slow part, they are slow, but that it's boring. I watched "Iron Fist" over the last several days and I found the pacing refreshing. It was very much character-driven, rather than action driven, but there were all kinds of twists and turns that kept it from being boring. Ditto for "Luke Cage" which I'm partway through. Yes, I loved the first season of Daredevil, too, especially with its more Hong Kong style fight scenes, whereas Iron Fist's were more of the up-close quick-edit American style, but it was a really good show nonetheless.

irishloop 10y ago

I'm amazed how many people on HN complain about the content on Netflix. Especially compared to any other streaming service, such as Amazon or Hulu, they continue to provide much higher-end content for my dollar, as well as a (far) superior UI experience. For me, the stand-up specials like Dave Chapelle and Louis CK alone are huge and welcome additions, never mind the many, very good lesser known comedy specials on there. Their agreement with Dreamworks has only helped, allowing me to enjoy surprisingly good films like Zootopia. Even great cable channels like FX (The Americans, Legion) and AMC (Mad Men, Better Call Saul) are not available for any reasonable price as standalone cable packages, so I'm not sure what the comparison is in terms of quality. HBO at 15/month? But even HBO shows are hit-or-miss. And while their movie selection is generally pretty great, I still find myself not watching it all that much. It seems to me that Netflix provides a pretty high level of content at their price point.

phamilton 10y ago
Just FYI, Zootopia is Disney.
ninv 10y ago
Netflix has awful user interface. I found out that i waste 15 to 20 min everyday browsing the same movies which i have rejected previously. There is no way to hide a movie. If you start hiding the movies on Netflix, you will find that there is actually no new stuff to watch most of the time. Also their rating system is horrible, they should tie up with Rotten tomatoes for actual rating.
- deleted 10y ago
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- UnfalseDesign 10y ago
  They are currently in the process of updating their rating system. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14952434/netflix-five-star-ratings-going-away-thumbs-up-down http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14952434/netflix-five-star...

tboyd47 10y ago

> TV stars are demanding “movie star” salaries of some $250,000 per episode when they previously were content with half that One major result of Netflix's rise is that the TV format for entertainment is starting to be seen as on par with or better than the feature film format. There's something obvious about this from a viewer's standpoint. People are naturally drawn to abundance and regularity. Rather than having 100 discussions about which movie to watch together with my wife over the course of a year, then find that only 20 or so of them are on Netflix, and maybe 5 of them turn out to be stinkers, we can simply pick a show we both know is about a B+, and watch 100 episodes, not ever being disappointed. Also, if I watch the pilot of a great show, then I know I have a whole season to go through, with days of entertainment. If I watch a great movie, then welp, I've just watched a great movie and maybe in a few years there will be a sequel. From an artistic standpoint, there are freedoms that open up due to having established characters, routine plot conventions, etc. There was an article on HN a while back where Conan O'Brien mentioned that this is why he did exactly the same walk to the stage every single night, or something of that nature.

qznc 10y ago
> watch 100 episodes, not ever being disappointed Well, except for the last season. I have yet to see a series where the last season was the same quality as the rest.
- ghshephard 10y ago
  Breaking Bad. Personally found it the most rewarding (by far), and, from Wikipedia: (Season 5) After receiving three nominations for seasons two, three, and four, both halves of season five won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. The second half of the season also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2014. The season's Metacritic score of 99/100 led the show to be listed in Guinness World Records as the most acclaimed television series in history.[5]
- jeffmcjunkin 10y ago
  Well, except for Firefly :(

smaili 10y ago

I wonder if their focus on original content will open the door for a Blockbuster-like revival. It was nice growing up knowing there was always a reliable place filled with the latest movie releases as well as all of the classics.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> I wonder if their focus on original content will open the door for a Blockbuster-like revival. No, their focus on original content is entirely because once you have a situation where other content producers are cognizant of the proven value of streaming and their is robust competition in streaming, it's no longer practically possible to have a profitable one-step shop for high-value content from other owners' catalogs, since the high-deductible content is either being used to secure exclusive deals for the highest bidder or held back to anchor the content owner's own streaming service. The same thing happened with HBO once it proved the value of cable as a premium content delivery venue.

deegles 10y ago

We've already hit "peak content" for Netflix, which I define as "more hours of new content released that I'll watch in a year." I would estimate I watch about 200 hours a year, Netflix is releasing 1,000 hours of content this year[0]. This trend will only accelerate, especially considering all of the other providers pouring money into content. I wish that video content licensing could be regulated similar to radio music, where the license holder receives a flat rate per play (this could be adjusted to be per-minute with modifiers for SD/HD/etc). That would open up a whole new market of streaming websites that could focus on cataloging and recommending content, instead of me having to pay for many websites full of content that I cannot physically spend the time to find the best of. Some streaming devices have cross-service search functionality built in, but it could be much better. [0] http://bgr.com/2016/10/19/netflix-originals-1000-hours-programming/ http://bgr.com/2016/10/19/netflix-originals-1000-hours-progr...

e40 10y ago
That may be true, but there aren't more hours of content I care to watch. I often can't find anything to watch on Netflix, because I'm picky. I welcome them spending more on content, then I might be able to find something to watch.

JackFr 10y ago

The Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events was orders of magnitude better than theatrically released abomination starring Jim Carrey.

JCharante 10y ago

Too bad most of their original & acquired programming is terrible.

hkmurakami 10y ago

As the HBO CEO once said, (and I paraphrase) 'It's a race between whether HBO can become Netflix faster [1] or Netflix can become HBO faster[2]' [1] distribution [2] original content

jerhinesmith 10y ago
I think it was Netflix that said that: https://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hbo-faster-than-hbo-can-become-us https://gizmodo.com/5980103/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hb...
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Whoops appreciate the correction!
- deleted 10y ago
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MisterBastahrd 10y ago

IMO, the best sort of series are miniseries. Tell your story and be done with it. I'd rather remember something for how great it was than how great its decline was.

krupan 10y ago

But I still can't stream Goonies.

Keyframe 10y ago

At $2-3m (double on the high end and established) production cost per episode of anything, we're looking at a massive amount of TV content. Unless they opt for films - if so, good luck.

nilanjonB 10y ago

I wonder what bump in revenue streams they are expecting to justify billions in programming every year.

echelon 10y ago

Is there room for new challengers in this space, or are all of the media incumbents going to lock down the rest of the digital entertainment space? I live in Atlanta, and the cost of production here is much cheaper than California. I've been mulling over the merits of someone here launching a streaming platform for some of the locally-produced content.

anothercomment 10y ago

I often find it a bit funny when the streaming providers advertise their exclusive content. As if it was a bonus for subscribers, when really it is part of their fight for becoming a monopoly and tying users to them. Best for users would be to have all content available everywhere, not having to subscribe to multiple streaming providers. That said, if that is the game they have to play, I am happy if at least it results in some worthwhile series.

mschuster91 10y ago

Happy Netflix user but the quality especially of old-ish series is beyond infuriating. I have untouched-DVD rips from Star Trek Voyager. Single episodes run around 2 GB of data, while the same Netflix episodes are ~200MB. Not only does Netflix not carry the bonus stuff, but the quality is seriously braindead - weird moire effects in the intro, for example, and it just looks pixelated. In fact, the "scene rips" tend to look better than what Netflix offers! And it's certainly not due to low network quality, I've got a 100/20 connection and stuff like Shadowhunters is clear HD.

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TylerH 10y ago

I love Netflix, but they really need to invest in some more depth for the UI. Let me curate my own lists and my own history per profile, including removing stuff from dynamic lists. I don't want to have to go into my account settings (something only the account owner can do) to remove recently watched items from my account history and then have to wait 24 hours for it to actually happen. Let me build new lists and manually dump a tv show or movie into them. Let me search all offerings, sortable and filterable alphabetically and/or by release date. Let me view my profile's total viewing history if I'm interested. Even for titles that are no longer viewable on Netflix. A neat feature would be to group these by title. So you can show just "The Office" or "Game of Thrones" or "The West Wing", which can be expanded to a list of seasons, each of which can be expanded to a list of episodes, showing which ones I've watched and which ones I haven't. --- --- --- As enjoyable and useful as Netflix is, the fact that it still remains essentially a completely non-customizable list of "what's popular" is just incredibly lazy on their part.

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jordanpg 10y ago

Whatever you might think about their streaming listings, their DVD listings still contain virtually everything, and they stay there indefinitely. And yet I hear that their DVD business is hemorrhaging cash and has numbered days. This DVD business is the only place I am aware of for renting a great many movies. RedBox has very limited offerings. If it ever does fold, consider that for movies that don't appear in anyone's streaming catalog or a catalog you subscribe to, the only other (legal) option you'll have is to buy the DVD somewhere. I don't know what things will look like in 10 years technologically, but if the Netflix DVD business ever goes away, there will be movies that are permanently inaccessible for rental.

thomastjeffery 10y ago

I'm happy about the prospect of Hollywood's death, but I'm disappointed with Netflix's current direction. Since House of Cards they have been creating fantastic quality work, but due to senseless DRM constraints, I can't even watch any of it in 4k without spending ~$100 on specialized hardware, even though my PC is more than proficient enough at video playback.