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Television Businesses Movies The Almighty Buck The Internet Entertainment

Netflix Adds 5.3 Million Subs In Q3, Beating Forecasts (variety.com) 70

Posted by BeauHD from the better-than-expected dept.
Netflix shows no signs of slowing down. The company announced its third quarter results, adding more subscribers in both the U.S. and abroad than expected. Variety reports: The company gained 850,000 streaming subs in the U.S. and 4.45 million overseas in the period. Analysts had estimated Netflix to add 784,000 net subscribers in the U.S. and 3.62 million internationally for Q3. "We added a Q3-record 5.3 million memberships globally (up 49% year-over-year) as we continued to benefit from strong appetite for our original series and films, as well as the adoption of internet entertainment across the world," the company said in announcing the results, noting that it had under-forecast both U.S. and international subscriber growth. Netflix also indicated that its content spending may be even higher next year than previously projected. The company had said it was targeting programming expenditures of $7 billion in 2018; on Monday, Netflix said it will spend between $7 billion and $8 billion on content (on a profit-and-loss basis) next year. For 2017, original content will represent more than 25% of total programming spending, and that "will continue to grow," Netflix said.
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Netflix Adds 5.3 Million Subs In Q3, Beating Forecasts More

Netflix Adds 5.3 Million Subs In Q3, Beating Forecasts

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  • With how Hulu has completely bludgeoned their UI on devices like the Roku, how many of these new subscribers are simply people leaving Hulu?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrDoh! ( 71235 )
      Just cancelled my hulu sub a couple of weeks ago. Just seemed a waste. The UI sucked, management of shows I wanted to watch was random at best, and support to try and get things fixed were responded with "that's just what we're doing now, deal with it" (close enough). Another lesson on 'how to grind a viable/popular business into the ground, step 1. ignoring customers". Always had a netflix sub, but just nothing worth watching on Hulu once they lost Comedy Central. I was happy to pay the few bucks to h

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DeVilla ( 4563 )

      Actually, with the latest update, I finally use Hulu on Roku. I have a family of 5 and the prior UI was unusable. We had to share a single profile/watchlist and anyone in my living room could change account settings that automatically changed what got billed to my credit card.

      The current Hulu UI on Roku is unconventional at best, but we can at least use it now. Beats the hell out of Prime. It still has a single watch list for the family to share and you can't search for what is available on Prime withou

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lucm ( 889690 )

      How do you watch prime? Did you buy the remote thing? I think they have good series but I was disappointed in the streaming options.

      • It is a frustrating extra step, but you can usually cast it from your phone to whatever streaming box or stick you have on the TV.

  • Now if they wou;ld just (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Monday October 16, 2017 @09:53PM (#55380861)

    Add more content. There is over 100 years of movies and over 75 years of television they could add pretty cheaply.

    There seems to be less content now than there was when I first subscribed.

    • Add more content. There is over 100 years of movies and over 75 years of television they could add pretty cheaply.

      There seems to be less content now than there was when I first subscribed.

      It's not as if we weren't grateful for your tens of dolllars in subscription revenue, loyal user, but in order to capture market share to bring you the best programming money can buy, we were forced to sacrifice a temporary bit of content. You're welcome.

      • Patriot ACT logic...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ebyrob ( 165903 )

        Could it be the major movie studios quit selling movie rights to Netflix and greatly delayed release to Netflix past normal home releases? Oh my goodness, is that why Netflix had to start making their own content? Looks like someone woke up a sleeping giant.

        If Netflix had a problem with *only* getting $10.00 per subscriber per month, I think they'd find a way to ask for more. I get the feeling they're not too concerned about it though seeing they have a spare $8 billion to throw around making content eve

    • Re:Now if they wou;ld just (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thereitis ( 2355426 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @01:59AM (#55381467) Journal
      If Netflix were going to add 75 years worth of content, they'd really have to improve their search, discovery, and add filtering features. Even now it's quite a chore to find something new and interesting and no way to filter out what's not interesting.

      Let me search by one or more of director, by movie rating, actor/actress, publish date, rotten tomatoes score, etc.. There's no reason they couldn't do that other than dumbing the interface down for the masses. Give me an "advanced" option at least.

      I can't tell you how many times I've had someone over and we're like hey let's watch a movie. Then spend the next 20 minutes flipping through Netflix and giving up.

      Netflix is the best option out there, but once someone comes up with a better search and quality content, they're going to eat Netflix's lunch.

      • Could not agree with you more...
        Even simple features, such as the ability to filter out anything I have already seen, would be welcome. In fact, if Netflix would just go out and hire a couple of UI design experts, that would be a start...

      • Re:Now if they wou;ld just (Score:5, Informative)

        by Tukz ( 664339 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @03:47AM (#55381689) Journal

        I can really recommend https://www.justwatch.com/ [justwatch.com]

        It got filters for searching in several streaming services.

      • Last I checked, netflix had actually taken features out of the gui but was still supporting them in URLs. you could put in search and view options which were no longer clickable anywhere. I haven't tried to do that in ages though, because I now watch Netflix almost exclusively on Amazon Fire Stick, where all the interfaces are terrible

      • >Let me search by one or more of director, by movie rating, actor/actress, publish date, rotten tomatoes score, etc

        Genre, recommended viewer age, content (violence/sex/swearing/whatever) year (with +/-), director, actor, writer, studio, nation or geographic region of production, box office, major award wins... and except for year, multiple simultaneous selections and/or exclusions for each.

        Maybe I want to see a historical porn comedy with no horror elements made in approximately 1985 in Europe but not Ge

        • A side benefit for Netflix (if they implemented these suggestions) is they'd build up a finely grained data set of the types of movies people are looking for just by looking at users' search history.

          • More than that, when the movie ends you should be offered the chance to agree or disagree with the categorization and offer suggested changes.

            95% of exit polls agree on a category? Auto-update the database. Easy-peasy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ebyrob ( 165903 )

        IMDB is the search for movies we should all be using.

        The only problem is now you can't go to blockbuster to get the latest movies on video, instead you have to check 10 different services to see which one might have it this week.

        The way things are going, the fragmentation is only set to get worse. I'd hope for copyright reform, but after the DMCA making security research a criminal offense I shudder to think what the next round of "reforms" might bring.

      • I use this once a month when they modify their content and add stuff to my watch list:

        http://instantwatcher.com/sear... [instantwatcher.com]

      • Better Search:

        http://instantwatcher.com/ [instantwatcher.com]

        Netflix and Amazon searches....

        I don't even bother with Netflix search, it could be so much better, and maybe even useful.

  • While content decreases (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Monday October 16, 2017 @10:34PM (#55380979)
    While # of "subs" and monthly cost continue to climb, actual content has deceased. In the 2 years 2014-2016, number of movies and TV shows decreased by 33% and 26% respectively.
    http://time.com/4272360/the-nu... [time.com]
    Just this August, Disney has announced it's pulling it's entire library OFF Netflix in favor of its own streaming service.
    What really torques me is that shows I should be able to see, I can't in the US due to greedy lawyers, but the shows are readily available to netflix in other countries (ie: Startrek Discovery)
    • Thatâ(TM)s not greedy lawyers stopping you from watching Star Trek on Netflix. Thatâ(TM)s CBS, who made a distribution deal. Because... money! They decided letting Netflix have it internationally but keeping it to themselves in Canada and the US was a good balance of making lots of money and giving them a brand to increase All Access subs with. I donâ(TM)t care for it either so I havenâ(TM)t subscribed to All Access.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      There was an old BBC series, made for but not by them, called Ashes to Ashes that I wanted to see. I was on Netflix for a few years, then vanished.

      I've been trying to figure out the economics of that. It's dirt cheap to buy on disc, I can't imagine they make much money that way, so why not get a bit of revenue from Netflix viewings too? Is Netflix a really bad deal for them, worse than the physical sales?

      • I've been trying to figure out the economics of that. It's dirt cheap to buy on disc, I can't imagine they make much money that way, so why not get a bit of revenue from Netflix viewings too? Is Netflix a really bad deal for them, worse than the physical sales?

        You know how The Beatles and Taylor Swift just recently relented and licensed their material for online sales? Smart people told them that fifteen years ago, the economics never changed, but the economic luddites were only recently convinced.

        I cancel

        • The reason Netflix doesn't care about people like me is that I want "to watch X" but most people want "to find something to watch", so they're way better off doing what they're doing than to pandering to my eclectic wants.

          I'm not so sure. Everyone else wants "to watch X" as well, it's just that they don't know what X is yet. So, they end up having "to find something to watch" in order to identify it.

          Your issue is that you enjoy watching different content than most people. Content that Netflix does not have.

  • But they're doomed! (Score:4, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday October 16, 2017 @11:28PM (#55381109) Homepage Journal

    I heard here on Slashdot that they were doomed since they were removing content and raising prices! This is unpossible!

    • In a normal world, removing content and raising prices *would* lead to your doom.

      However this is not a normal world, and your competitors are even worse than you... far worse. Cable companies and telcos (like AT&T which have been buying up cable TV-like entities such as DirecTV) are the most despised entities on the planet. Well maybe with the possible exception of mafia and drug cartels. But it would be safe to say that cable companies are the most despised organizations that operate within the limits

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I heard here on Slashdot that they were doomed since they were removing content and raising prices! This is unpossible!

      1. Forecasts for next quarter are much lower:

      Note that the results do not include the effects of Netflix's price increases in the U.S. and other territories, which took effect for new subs in early October and will roll out to existing members through the fourth quarter.

      2. It's quite unlikely they'd capture market share that way unless the competitors do even worse changes, but the market can still be growing. For example if old people don't use Netflix and young people do you'd see a ~1m growth/quarter (323/78/4) just from plain aging. Replacing "traditional" products like say landlines, dead tree newspapers, buying CDs and cutting cable often have a clear age profile where people are convinced by other people in roughly the sa

  • T-Mobile (Score:4, Informative)

    by JestersGrind ( 2549938 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2017 @08:59AM (#55382253)

    There is currently a T-Mobile promotion that pays for Netflix for their members. I wonder how many of those 5 million are coming from that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dysmal ( 3361085 )

      There is currently a T-Mobile promotion that pays for Netflix for their members. I wonder how many of those 5 million are coming from that.

      I wish i had mod points for this. +1

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jlv ( 5619 )

      I agree, I came here to same the same thing. Mod +1.

      I'm one of these new 5.3M subs this quarter. I never had a Netflix account until T-Mobile told me they'd pay for it (and I'd only just jumped ship to T-Mobile the month before).

      Given the benefit for Netflix, I'd go so far to wonder if T-Mobile paid Netflix or Netflix paid T-Mobile.

      • T-Mobile zero-rates your bandwidth to Netflix if you've opted into BingeOn, so they've already made a tacit acknowledgement of Netflix's popularity and value.

        I wouldn't be surprised if T-Mobile pays Netflix a deeply discounted rate. Netflix gets virtually guaranteed subscriptions and word of mouth, and T-Mobile can probably reduce advertising buys just by luring people with the Netflix promotion.

  • It is no wonder that Netflix is making large gains. The programming at Comcast has been so lousy for the last year that people are seeking better choices.

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