Watching all the news from Netflix will not be within the power of one person for a long time, but its producers have already started to tame it. Last year, for the first time in its history, the company released less content than the year before. In 2023, about 130 fewer films, series and other programs were released on Netflix than in 2022.
The individual titles were calculated by the What’s on Netflix platform, which monitors the production of the largest streaming service for a long time.
One of the reasons for the decline is last year’s strike by American screenwriters and actors, which paralyzed all of Hollywood for several months. A number of film and series premieres have been postponed, sometimes indefinitely, due to suspended production.
However, the representatives of Netflix pretended that the American protest did not affect them so much, since the company has started filming all over the world. However, in a letter to shareholders after the latest quarterly results, Netflix admitted that it will spend only about thirteen billion dollars on new content in 2023 due to the strikes. The originally planned budget was seventeen billion.
In addition to a few new releases, which did not include any particularly anticipated films or series, last year Netflix also arranged sequels for around three dozen series. And thanks to the December report , in which the company published detailed viewership data for the first time, it can be seen that Netflix is not afraid to stop even very popular projects. He canceled the continuation of the fantasy series Light and Shadows, the second season of which collected a respectable 193 million hours of viewing last year between January and June. In the ranking of more than eighteen thousand titles, it ranks 32nd.
Viewers can’t even wait for another series of the popular sci-fi 1899, which Netflix cut right after the first series.The streaming service has been digging into its business since the first half of 2022, when it came to sober up after the pandemic sitting in front of screens of all kinds.Netflix has laid off a few people , started experimenting with cheaper ad subscriptions, and stepped in to share passwords between users. But unlike the competition, the company has not significantly cut its production until now.
In contrast, the offer of HBO Max (which will soon change to Max) or Disney+ has been gradually getting poorer for a long time . Last year, users of the latter streaming service lost access to almost a hundred titles from the production company Disney.»The income statements of major media companies are under pressure from depreciation on content that has already been created and published,» analyst Michael Nathanson explained last year. Companies thus reduced costs by slimming down their program offer in accounting.
«Warner Bros Discovery was the first to get it,» added Nathanson.In addition to depreciation, the removal of content from the offer may be because the company wants to save on licensing fees and royalties for creators.Or it needs to write off the cost on taxes like Warner Bros. Discovery ( WBD ) did when it trashed the finished Batgirl movie in 2022. In the same way, this owner of HBO also dumped a completed film from the world of Looney Tunes for thirty million dollars in the English title Coyote vs. Acme. Warner Bros.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav has been trying to cut billions of dollars in costs since the company was formed through the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery. The result, among other things, is that HBO has sold part of its catalog to a competitor .Disney also cuts where possible.
Its new CEO Bob Iger announced at the beginning of last year an ambitious plan to save five and a half billion dollars in costs. In November, after the company’s last published quarterly results, this target was raised by another two billion.Interim CFO Kevin Lansberry said at the presentation that Disney will spend about $25 billion on new content next fiscal year, up from $27 billion in fiscal 2023 and $29.9 billion the year before.
