Netflix Is Counting on Paid Sharing to ‘Accelerate’ Revenue Growth

Jada Pinkett Smith is sharing a BIG follicular update!

Court was back in session last week as The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 climbed back into first place among Netflix’s English-language series.

BreAnna Bell Season 2 of “Heartstopper” soared to second place on the Netflix Top 10 during the July 31-Aug. 6 viewing window as fans jumped to reunite with Nick and Charlie. After premiering on the service on Aug.

told the Los Angeles Times that attempts to arrange a meeting with Netflix — to demand that members be compensated with the same residual model as American members of SAG-AFTRA — have gone unanswered for months.“One of [Netflix’s] first priorities when entering the local market should be to establish some channel of communication with groups like us,” the country’s answer to Fran Drescher said.“But there’s no answer at all.”Residuals have recently been in the news as American actors and writers striking for fair compensation post their often insultingly meager checks, ranging from a single penny to a few dollars. As opposed to the royalties paid in broadcasting, residuals must be paid in perpetuity to actors in the United States, based on how many times their films and shows are streamed.

One of Netflix’s biggest original movies is The Old Guard, which landed on the streaming service in the middle of the pandemic in 2020.

Phoebe Dynevor became a star with the Netflix series Bridgerton and now she’s heading back to the streaming service with her new movie Fair Play.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has unveiled the first trailer for series “Guns & Gulaabs,” starring Dulquer Salmaan (“Chup”) and Rajkummar Rao (“Bheed”). The series is created by India-based filmmaking duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. – popularly known as Raj & DK – as part of a multi-year creative partnership with Netflix under their D2R Films banner.

Stacey Solomon has told her fans that her work life isn't always as glamorous as it may seem as she also shared with them why she's currently 'counting down the seconds'. The Loose Women star had been quiet on social media before returning on Sunday (July 30) and explaining she'd been reunited with her young family.

Netflix has sparked an outcry by listing a vacancy for a new $900,000-a-year product manager role for their AI Machine Learning programme in the midst of the SAG-AFTRA strike.The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) union went on strike earlier this month, after negotiations broke down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over streaming residuals and safeguards against AI technology.According to the job description, the Product Manager position will focus on “increasing the leverage of our Machine Learning Platform.” The MLP is Netflix’s in-house AI program, which has traditionally been used to power the streamer’s algorithmic recommendations. Per Netflix’s research page, the company is now making more use of the program to “optimise” film and TV production, although it’s not clear how they plan to do so.We all know one of the biggest issues both of the striking guilds, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, have with AMPTP’s offer for a new contract is a lack of protection against and regulation of AI.

Netflix is rolling out a new feature called My Netflix, which will replace the Downloads tab on the bottom right of the home screen on iOS apps starting today.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix has rolled out a new feature designed to — what else? — get you to stream as much as possible on the service. Starting Monday, Netflix’s app is adding My Netflix, a new tab described as a “one-stop shop tailored to you.” The My Netflix tab supersedes the Downloads tab on the app, where users could find and watch the TV shows and movies they had saved for offline viewing. My Netflix provides a consolidated view of users’ downloads; a list of TV series and movies they have given a “thumbs up” to; shows and films saved to their My List watch list; trailers they have watched; reminders they have set for upcoming releases; a list of titles that they’re in the middle of watching; and what they’ve recently watched.

Wall Street reviews of Netflix’ latest earnings ranged from upbeat to more cautiously optimistic, with the latter taking hold today after a major jump in net new subscribers failed to ignite sales last quarter.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Shares of Netflix were down more than 8% in early trading Thursday, coming after the streamer blew away estimates on subscriber gains for the second quarter — and analysts saying the company continues to be well positioned to weather Hollywood’s double actors and writers strike relative to its peers. But investors had been anticipating a bigger bump from its new initiative to monetize password-sharing accounts. Note that Netflix’s post-earnings stock drop came amid high investor expectations leading into the Q2 report: Shares were up nearly 62% year to date in 2023. Revenue for Q2 came in at $8.19 billion, shy of Wall Street’s $8.3 billion consensus expectations. And Netflix’s guidance for Q3 revenue of $8.52 billion also was less than the $8.9 billion average forecast by analysts. The company added 5.9 million net new subs in the second quarter, more than double expectations, and said it expects to add about the same number in Q3.

Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters said the initial verdict is in on paid password sharing — a risky but multi-billion-dollar initiative for the company — and it is positive.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix is “more than a year out” from any price increases in its major markets like the U.S. as it looks to spur revenue growth from its password-sharing crackdown, CFO Spence Neumann said. The streamer has “largely paused” price hikes after it began rolling out the paid-sharing program starting in May 2023, Neumann said on the Q2 earnings interview. “Most of our revenue growth this year is from growth in volume, through new paid memberships. And that’s largely driven by our paid-sharing rollout,” he said. “It is our primary revenue accelerator in the year.” Netflix most recently raised prices in the U.S. and other major markets in the first half of 2022, under which its Standard plan — its most popular tier, which provides two simultaneous HD streams — increased by $1.50, to $15.49 per month.

a crackdown on password sharing, which led to a huge subscription spike — presumably as freeloaders found themselves locked out.Unlike other services, Netflix did not show commercials until late 2022, when it began trialing an ad-supported plan. A recent report stated that just 5 million users had signed up for the option globally.

Netflix added 5.9 million global subscribers, reaching 238.3 million, with password sharing pushing subscribers to the months-old $7-a-month plan with advertising.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix touted strong momentum for its push into advertising, claiming subscribers on its ad-supported tier nearly doubled in the second quarter of 2023. However, the streamer said, advertising revenue in Q2 was still not material in the context of its overall business. The company announced Q2 earnings Wednesday. Overall, Netflix netted 5.9 million new paid subscribers, amid its broader crackdown on password-sharing violators. On the ad front, “While we continue to grow our reach — ads plan membership has nearly doubled since Q1 — it’s still off a small membership base, so current ad revenue isn’t material for Netflix,” the company said in its quarterly letter to shareholders. “Building an ads business from scratch isn’t easy and we have lots of hard work ahead, but we’re confident that over time we can develop advertising into a multibillion-dollar incremental revenue stream.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix reported its second-quarter 2023 earnings Wednesday, revealing its subscribers increased by 5.89 million in the quarter ended June 30. At the end of Q1, Netflix’s global subscriber count was 232.5 million. Analysts had project the streamer gaining 1.769 million new subscribers in Q2, which saw Netflix begin notifying customers in the U.S. and other countries that users on their accounts who live outside their households would need to be added as an “extra member” (or pay for their own subscriptions). Wall Street forecast earnings per share (EPS) of $2.86 on $8.3 billion in revenue, according to analyst consensus data provided by Refinitiv. Netflix reported diluted EPS of $2.88 on $8.2 billion in revenue.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix’s move to start broadly monetizing password-sharing users — after years of tacitly allowing the practice with a wink and a nod — could help the streamer beat Q2 2023 earnings targets. The company again kicks off tech and media sector’s second-quarter earnings season, scheduled to report Q2 earnings on Wednesday (July 19) after the market closes. A key question on investors minds will be how well Netflix is prepped to weather the double-whammy of SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. In April, before either of the strikes commenced, co-CEO Ted Sarandos told analysts, “We do have a pretty robust slate of releases to take us into a long time” in the event of labor walkouts.