Warner Bros. library going to HBO Max and 20th Century Studios titles now belonging to Disney.
Although Netflix has seen some major competition in recent years, especially from Disney+ and their slate of originals from the Star Wars and Marvel universes, they have continued to report major gains for their original content. They have consistently broken their own records, with last year seeing both the star-studded action comedy Red Notice and the dystopian Korean drama series Squid Game report record numbers in their respective categories. Since the beginning of 2022, they have also scored hits with Bridgerton season 2, the scammer series Inventing Anna, and The Adam Project, which reteamed Ryan Reynolds with Free Guy director Shawn Levy, who is now on board to Deadpool 3.
Per Variety, Netflix just shared its report on its Q1 earnings for 2022. The streamer, which was already expecting a dip in added subscribers, shared its first negative subscriber number in 10 years, losing 200,000 subscribers as they dropped from a total of 221.84 million to 221.64 million. This can largely be ed for by their discontinuation of service in Russia on of their military action in Ukraine, without which they would have gained 500,000 subscribers. However, that number is still substantially lower than their expected gain of 2.5 million.
Netflix has also projected a devastating loss in Q2, expecting an additional 2 million subscribers to leave their ranks. Netflix has already taken a hit, with its stock falling 22% after this announcement. Their plan to combat this subscriber loss is to continue focusing on providing content subscribers want to see (they plan on spending $18 billion on new films and television series in 2022 alone), as well as pursuing paid alternatives to sharing and cheaper ad-ed models, a subscription plan that will be adopted by its competitor Disney+ later this year.
Even the big streamers like Disney+ and Netflix are clearly panicking about the latest developments in the streaming world. Whether these issues are being caused by people sharing (as Netflix suspects), the increased competition in the marketplace with the arrival of new services including Paramount+ and HBO Max, or merely a generalized economic malaise is difficult to pinpoint. While their pursuit of these other models might help them get their numbers back in the black, it may also backfire. All of these economic strategies will make the service less accommodating to subscribers, who may bail if the service cracks down on multiple profiles or continues to increase their subscription rates.
Source: Variety
