Is Netflix Getting Out of the Film Business?

[IronFilm]

http://www.filmtake.com/streaming/subscription-video-trends-challenges-part-one/

 

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Subscribers watching licensed and original television series’ content on Netflix account for more than two-thirds of viewing time.

Series viewership outpaces overall growth mainly because Netflix has dedicated vast resources to becoming a content producer rather than remaining only an aggregator.

Although Netflix has acquired rights to a modest number of films at Sundance, Cannes, and TIFF, their U.S. film streaming library remains weak.

 

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For every $8 per month Netflix collects from its 100 million subscribers, between $6-7 is spent on content production and licensing. More than half of these content costs now fuels Netflix original programming, which has soared.

The size of Netflix’s film library has steadily decreased over the last two years. 

 

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At a recent conference, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer said one-third of subscribers view movies, regardless of how many different movies are in its library.

Adding more movies to its library doesn’t increase the amount subscribers watch.

Independent film distributors would benefit from banding together to offer streaming options rather than having their films buried in Netflix’s original series catalog or Amazon’s impossibly expansive warehouse of everything.

 

 

Wonder if this might be bad news for indie filmmakers trying to sell films to Netflix? 
(good news though if you're pitching an original series to Netflix! But for the vast majority of us, that isn't applicable)

[jcs]

This is the real issue from that article:

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AT&T, Comcast, and Spectrum own a near monopoly on the nation’s access to the internet and media.

By benefit of this virtue HBO and NBCUniversal, through Spectrum and Comcast can exert greater control in the future to hamper the growth of Netflix or other new players.

I could see Amazon/PrimeVideo acquiring Netflix in the future. Amazon makes money in other ways which could help deal with the internet/media monopoly. Netflix is making original content for survival as the media companies own everything else. Most indie content isn't worth watching for most people. What's needed is better search/matching tools for 'long tail' indie content that could be efficiently matched with micro markets. Ultimately, 'good content will become popular virally'. If people aren't sharing your content, it's not good enough (or you need to find your market where they'll share with others of similar interest). Once again our old friend Artificial Intelligence could be leveraged to provide better content matching with long-tail micro markets.

Until we get our quantum entanglement people-owned wire-free and radio-free network (not communism/socialism, something else), these issues will persist.

[ntblowz]

The last time I watch "indie" films is when I was at uni

 

Now I dont even have time to watch proper films, let alone indie stuff! (<5 min shorts I still do occasionally)

[tomekk]

10 hours ago, jcs said:

This is the real issue from that article:

I could see Amazon/PrimeVideo acquiring Netflix in the future. Amazon makes money in other ways which could help deal with the internet/media monopoly. Netflix is making original content for survival as the media companies own everything else. Most indie content isn't worth watching for most people. What's needed is better search/matching tools for 'long tail' indie content that could be efficiently matched with micro markets. Ultimately, 'good content will become popular virally'. If people aren't sharing your content, it's not good enough (or you need to find your market where they'll share with others of similar interest). Once again our old friend Artificial Intelligence could be leveraged to provide better content matching with long-tail micro markets.

Until we get our quantum entanglement people-owned wire-free and radio-free network (not communism/socialism, something else), these issues will persist.

What do you mean by "good content" and "popular" ? It seems these rarely coexist (if you lean towards "quality" by saying good content) unless you mean popular in micro markets but that's something very different to what people think "popular" means. 

[Andrew Reid]

Producing your own content is a good long term business model because years later when the repeats air on other stations, you can earn a lot from the syndication fees.

Once Stranger Things is old and no longer attracts new customers to Netflix it will be on cable and other streaming services and Netflix will get paid for every view.

[KrisAK]

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Wonder if this might be bad news for indie filmmakers trying to sell films to Netflix? 
(good news though if you're pitching an original series to Netflix! But for the vast majority of us, that isn't applicable)

Anyone using Amazon Video Direct?

https://videodirect.amazon.com/home/landing

AVD probably accounts for all the (extremely) low-budget genre films...even short films...that show up in searches on Amazon video. Every now and then I'll find a gem, and once it picks up votes, it bubbles to the top of the rankings and gains word-of-mouth on genre-specific websites.