The Netflix Pitch
Sorry to break it to you, but Netflix really has dumped ‘The Office’ and ‘Friends.’ As investors wave goodbye to the golden oldies, Netflix looks inward for content. Maintaining a 45% stock gain this year will largely depend on grand plans paying off!
The first step is to control eyeballs. For Netflix, share of the market comes second to share of attention, because so much entertainment is offered to viewers these days with so little time to choose between it. Netflix is privy to this. Its growth stems from in-house hits like ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ so those must catch the eye! A new strategy to give inertia-driven shows a backseat has led to estimates of 6.6 million extra users joining the service next quarter. Now Netflix is speaking our language!
The entertainment industry has been great to investors. As cord-cutting from cable continues, streamers have managed to reach millions, for millions less. Moreover, even on a broader scale as international headwinds drag at the economic expansion, streaming is a consistently important business for market-beating tech firms to be in.
However, Netflix doesn’t have a completely open runway to outsized success. Given the prospects attached to streaming, other sharks are circling these waters. Netflix will have to fend off Disney+, soon to burst into living rooms with all its timeless Mouse House family favorites. AT&T has also entered the fray with WarnerMedia, along with services from Amazon and Hulu.
Bottom line? Hollywood is an online battlefield! Millions of dollars are waged on the various fighting sides, each prioritizing their in-house firepower and hanging their shingle in front of a midnight audience of pop-corn munching binge-watchers. They’re the real winners, by the way!