KOLKATA: Netflix wants to be the ‘best friend’, the primary choice of streamers across the world. While the streaming rat race is picking up internationally, Netflix is moving fast and expanding its content mix. It has moved on from only focusing on scripted episodic originals to also strive to replicate the success of premium TV in unscripted content, movies and animation. This, for Netflix, is the “next decade” of opportunities.
“We are so excited about the next decade of Netflix growth. We've definitely got a good start, but the opportunity across the next decade is just amazing for us. It's a lot international but I couldn't be more excited about it, and it will be great to have some help as we expand the globe, and I'm looking forward to that. And to be totally clear, I'm in for a decade. And as co-CEO, it's two of us full time. It's not like a part-time deal. So it's definitely broadening the management team and help us grow even faster over the next 10 years,” Netflix co-founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said as he named chief content officer Ted Sarandos as co-CEO.
Is Netflix in the next ten years the same compared to the last years? Hastings said in an earnings call after Q2 results that it has got a good model for the next ten years and just need to make it better. Netflix has historically spent most of its money on content but it is also working on making the service better, more user-friendly with a smarter UI.
“A couple of years ago, we only had a premium TV. And now to be really good in movies, to be really good in unscripted, emerging in animation, very strong in local language shows and series, I mean it's an incredible expansion that Ted has pulled off over the last five years. So think of it as just us doing more of that at a higher scale and pleasing more people,” he added.
Sarandos, the content king at Netflix said that if the platform aims to be the go-to destination for entertainment, it would not be a smart move to ignore the area of programming that dominates broadcast. Hence, it has been dabbling in unscripted reality. Notably, Netflix has significantly spoken more of animated content in the last one year which is the best weapon of its rival Disney+.
Hastings said that the content team is coming up with some big bets. “We want to have so many hits that when you come to Netflix, you can just go from hit to hit to hit and never have to think about any of those other services, right? We want to be like your primary, your best friend, the one you turn to. And of course, occasionally, there's Hamilton and you're going to go to someone else's service for an extraordinary film. But for the most part, we want to be the one that just always please you with the convenience, simple and easy choice,” Hastings said.
Despite leading the streaming revolution, competition is going to be the biggest challenge for the pioneer in the next ten years with deep-pocket rivals like Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max and Peacock having entered the market. Even more of the traditional networks are now pulling off content from Netflix for their digital arms causing a big dent in the library as the evergreen popular shows still attract eyeballs.
As the US market gets overcrowded with large-scale contenders, Netflix is going to focus highly on international markets. “When I think about what our future is and I think it's just a tremendous next stage of growth that we will see mostly coming from outside the United States. So think of more and more employees outside the United States, more productions, more operations happening outside the US and hopefully, many, many more members outside the US. This is an opportunity to lean in just a little bit more, be proactive and drive a little bit more alignment across those activities where we think alignment will benefit the business and push the optimisation of those activities a little bit more,” Netflix COO and chief product officer Gregory Peters said.
Meanwhile, Netflix has already set its eye on the largest growing OTT market - India. It set an audacious goal of getting its next 100 million subscribers from the country. This is a tougher market to crack given the local rivals alongside Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video. In the last quarter, it has added less than three million paid subscribers from the entire APAC region. However, despite the slow growth, Netflix is increasing investment here. A few days ago, it announced 17 new local originals. As the Netflix bosses embrace the excitement for the coming 10 years, reinvigorated content strategy and international expansion can save it from the dwindling position of once-undisputed streaming king and definitely there will more spending to get Indian audiences.
