This final weekend I used to be sitting in a resort room in Memphis, staring out on the car parking zone turned ice skating rink, wanting to only have a few hours with my mind turned off. I opened Netflix hoping to discover a film that might give me a night’s respite. Scrolling right down to the highest 10, I used to be met with a who’s who of the 2010s and 2020s. Cowboy & Aliens, the 2011 flop with a fantastic solid, was on the record. Queenpins, the 2021 flop with a fantastic solid, was additionally there. On the prime of the record was The Legend of Tarzan, a 2016 flop with a fantastic solid. Rounding out the highest 10 was a Sylvester Stallone flick from 2019 and a handful of recent releases I’d heard nothing about till I noticed them within the prime 10 record.
In a extremely aggressive streaming market the place each streaming service is preventing in your restricted {dollars}, it looks like a not good thing that Netflix’s prime 10 record might be mistaken for the lineup at TNT. Nevertheless it additionally looks like that is likely to be Netflix’s plan. Simply at this time, it introduced it was going to be the brand new official dwelling of considered one of primary cable’s crown jewels: WWE Monday Night Raw. And yesterday, the corporate announced the departure of Scott Stuber, who oversaw Netflix movie’s three consecutive years as probably the most nominated movie studio on the Academy Awards.
Netflix’s days of chasing status is likely to be quickly coming to an finish with this sharp reversal of the streaming golden age changed by one thing akin to Spike TV circa 2005. Or USA Community circa 2011. That isn’t essentially a foul factor. Each networks have been good at placing entertaining {old} movies and TV reveals in entrance of me and capturing programming successes with WWE, US dubs of standard and outrageous recreation reveals from abroad, and Fits.
The issue is these are simply additionally type of Netflix’s streaming technique in 2024 when the economics of streaming are nonetheless in flux and, up to now, fairly completely different from cable. (Though Fits has had such a preferred run at Netflix that USA is now pivoting back to making that kind of content, too). Netflix’s quickly rising advert enterprise will seemingly cowl the price of WWE rights. “This could add some gasoline to our new and rising advert enterprise,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in an earnings call after the announcement. However, if it doesn’t, then spending $5 billion to safe the rights for WWE Monday Night Raw for the next ten years means Netflix subscribers may see one other worth hike of their future — whether or not they like wrestling or not.
This all additionally appears to substantiate a difficulty I’ve been noticing with Netflix for some time now. It’s bought a programming drawback. In its bid to be one of the best streamer, it didn’t deal with particular audiences as most different streamers did. As a substitute, Netflix has tried to succeed in each viewers. First with originals, and now by simply shopping for up the streaming rights to issues. So it is bought no matter this long-delayed and troubled adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is, but additionally Younger Sheldon and Fits, and a wealth of overseas language programming.
Netflix’s programming technique at present appears to revolve round placing established successes from different firms on the market and hoping nobody notices that Netflix isn’t doing numerous actually good originals of its personal. Throughout that earnings name, Sarandos famous that licensed content material was a greater deal when operating an promoting enterprise — earlier than shortly noting that the service’s most-watched shows continued to primarily be originals (a number of Okay-dramas like the superb Crash Course in Romance additionally cracked the highest 20).
Whenever you’re as large as Netflix, leaning on less expensive licensed content material isn’t a foul technique. You become profitable spending much less on it than your originals, the place you’re shopping for from will get to have it on their service, too, and everybody seems to be good and pleasant and aggressive in case the FTC comes around.
But prices are rising. Netflix at present prices $6.99 for 2 screens, 1080p, and adverts, and a whopping $15.49 for two screens and no ads. If there’s a alternative between spending that on Netflix’s large seize bag of stuff and Apple TV’s fairly pristine library of well-made science fiction reveals… a science fiction nerd would possibly go together with Apple TV because it’s simply $9.99. Or they could go together with Amazon, as a result of they get Thursday Night time Soccer and Prime TV is included with Amazon Prime; or Disney as a result of they’ve youngsters and it begins at $7.99 with adverts, however prices simply $13.99 for no adverts; or Paramount Plus as a result of they’ve lingering fantasies of being a cowboy and wish to spend solely $11.99.
Finally, this technique of Netflix’s — to depend on its dimension, content material purchased from different streamers, and a graveyard of prematurely canceled originals — may battle. If it continues to be the priciest platform with fewer exclusives, individuals may transfer elsewhere. However perhaps Roman Reigns (and the brand new WWE deal) can prop up the entire enterprise on his distinctive shoulders. It labored for loads of primary cable channels till streaming got here alongside.