Negative Free Cash Flow Will Be an Indicator of Enormous Success For Netflix, Says CEO (barrons.com) 116
During Netflix's quarterly earnings call, in which it noted it had added more than five million subscribers in the last three months, CEO Red Hastings was also asked about the millions of dollars it burns every quarter. Hastings said that burning cash is a sign of success, in a way. Here's the money quote: Look, when we produce an amazing show like Stranger Things, that's a lot of capital up front, and then you get a payout over many years. And seeing the positive returns on that for the business as a whole is what makes us comfortable that we should continue to invest and integrate to basically self-develop many more properties as Ted (the content head) can find the appropriate ones. And then there's comfort with being able to finance it, and of course, our debt-to-market cap is incredibly low and conservative, so we've got lots of room there. And I think that combination that it's spent well and we can raise it is what makes us very excited. And the irony is the faster that we grow and the faster we grow the owned originals, the more drawn on free cash flow that we'll be. So in some senses, negative free cash flow will be an indicator of enormous success. On Monday, Netflix updated its estimate for negative free cash flow for 2017. While previously the company had said it would be $2 billion, Netflix now says it will be $2 to $2.5 billion (versus $1.7 billion in 2016).
Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:3, Interesting)
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will be*
Scroll down and there's 9000 MBAs chatting away when this whole conversation is basically "There is no absolute way to know the future." ie the viability of the investing.
This whole headline is probably the result of some pointed question from the "CURRENT QUARTER THO" gallery. Shareholders wet themselves if there isn't 9000% growth this quarter, every quarter.
Personally I'm happy when a corp moves their gains around, not piles them up and shrugs.
Re: Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:1)
Re:Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he's saying that spending money developing new shows is better than resting on their laurels and collecting cash.
Basically taking the long view.. it's no different than investing in a factory that increases output over the next 30 years, despite the current quarter's balance sheet taking a hit. (exactly the opposite what the fucking MBA culture seems to suggest.)
Forward thinking != automatic success (Score:4, Interesting)
I think he's saying that spending money developing new shows is better than resting on their laurels and collecting cash.
If so he is saying very wrong. Investing in the future is a great way to ensure success in the future but it is by no means an indication or guarantee of success in the present or future. It's entirely possible to invest heavily and be an utter failure e.g. if they invested in shows which were complete flops. The fact that their CEO equates investment in the future to automatic success is not a healthy sign since it suggests they have not planned for what happens if the investments go awry.
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Re:Forward thinking != automatic success (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you have a really good reason for the first (e.g. key talent viewed as valuable currently being tied up in other projects for a short term basis, etc.) there isn't any good reason for a company to sit on huge piles of cash. If they really don't want to hand it over to shareholders, the company can just invest it in other companies or investment vehicles, but that's also essentially admitting that the company can't put the money to good use itself.
Netflix has a pretty good track record, so unless the CEO is spouting some off-the-rails crap, I'll assume that they have a good plan in place. That's probably not something they're going to fully expound upon in detail in a shareholder meeting, so the CEO just makes some terse comments to assure shareholders that the company is taking the best course of action.
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The problem is that even if it is a wise move and correct, it is still not an 'indicator of success'. An 'indicator' would be positive cash flow.
Note that the alternative to spending more than you have is not 'sitting on cash'. You can spend exactly as much as you have. Again, circumstances may dictate temporarily exceeding your cash on hand and taking on debt, but if it is a long term situation that revenue never outpaces your costs, then it's a big problem.
Not necessarily netflix, but a *lot* of compan
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Note that the alternative to spending more than you have is not 'sitting on cash'. You can spend exactly as much as you have. Again, circumstances may dictate temporarily exceeding your cash on hand and taking on debt, but if it is a long term situation that revenue never outpaces your costs, then it's a big problem.
It depends on how loyal Netflix's customers will be. They are spending cash now to buy market share before a seriously good competitor shows up, and it seems to be working since they added 5m new customers. If they keep adding new customers at a high rate without losing too many current customers, they can simply choose to grow new content spending more slowly than their net revenue increases and eventually they will become profitable.
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As a paying subscriber, I don't give a rat's ass about the shareholders returns or whatnot. The only way to keep me as a paying subscriber is to give me things to watch - that's what Netflix is for.
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Netflix has a pretty good track record, so unless the CEO is spouting some off-the-rails crap, I'll assume that they have a good plan in place.
In terms of off the rail crap, this statement qualifies in my opinion:
Negative cash flow is an indicator of huge expenses. They can either be out of control operating expenses (very bad), capital expenses (investment), or payments on debt. In none of these cases are they an indication of success.
In this case, negative cashflow is an indicator of a huge investment in content creation, which may or may not pan out. The C
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Netflix has a pretty good track record, so unless the CEO is spouting some off-the-rails crap, I'll assume that they have a good plan in place.
This is "off-the-rails crap". All negative cash flow is an indication of is that the company is spending money faster than it can make it. This is an indication that whatever success you have had so far is at risk. The investments Netflix is making now need to not only keep its existing subscribers happy but must also attract enough new subscribers to increase revenue enough to cover the current level of expenses. The shows might all be successes but just not generate enough increase in revenue or the rate
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Most successful enterprises start out with debt; either in the form of loans and mortgages, or in the form of owner or shareholder equity via raising capital from investors. In either case, one is spending money that one has not yet earned under the assumption that future profits will pay back the debts or pay investors dividends. What Netflix is doing is no different than on me going to the bank or to investors to raise money to build a factory, and it's no different than how governments build infrastructu
Re:Forward thinking != automatic success (Score:5, Insightful)
> Most successful enterprises start out with debt
So do almost all unsuccessful ones.
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Taking these sorts of risks is usually the indication of a company fighting to stay ahead of its competitors, not an indication of success.
Yes, but he's a CEO and talking about his company to reporters, so he has to put at least some positive spin on it. You should also consider that it's also what every successful business in a relatively new field does. The ones who don't spend, get overtaken by competition and fade away. And he's not wrong, they are continuing the strategy because it has been hugely successful. I think the point, however awkwardly put, is that the negative cash flow is a sign that their strategy is succeeding (because ot
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Yes, but he's a CEO and talking about his company to reporters, so he has to put at least some positive spin on it.
A "positive spin" would be saying that we are spending lots of money making fantastic shows to rapidly grow our subscriber base and look at the millions we added in the last quarter so our plan is working, we stand to make lots of money and our customers are ecstatic about us but yes we will have some short term negative cash flow. Saying "our negative cash flow shows we are a success" suggests the CEO is spinning so fast he does know which direction reality is anymore which, were I an investor in Netflix,
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Long running properties like a series (Stranger Things) have pretty well mapped future income curves, if they're a smash hit on release that's almost like money in the bank for the next decade.
Re:Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think he's saying that spending money developing new shows is better than resting on their laurels and collecting cash.
That might be what he meant to say, but that's not what he said. He should have said, "we anticipate a reduction in cash as we make substantial investment in our in house programming. We expect a substantial return on this investment in the future."
Instead, he basically said, "High cost structure is an indicator of a successful business." Which is the opposite of true.
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That might be what he meant to say, but that's not what he said. He should have said, "we anticipate a reduction in cash as we make substantial investment in our in house programming. We expect a substantial return on this investment in the future."
What part of "Look, when we produce an amazing show like Stranger Things, that's a lot of capital up front, and then you get a payout over many years. " doesn't sound like just that?
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What part of "Look, when we produce an amazing show like Stranger Things, that's a lot of capital up front, and then you get a payout over many years. " doesn't sound like just that?
"... negative free cash flow will be an indicator of enormous success."
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Everyone that has ever made money on a long view will tell you that cash-flow is king. While I understand the reasoning, from the outside looking in I wouldn't touch it. They are taking huge risks on IP, not hard assets like factories and they appear to be doing it unwisely.
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They are taking huge risks on IP, not hard assets like factories and they appear to be doing it unwisely.
Well due to the current copyright legislation, IP can pay back over a period of up to an hundred years, whereas a factory often only has a relatively short payback time during which you need to continously retool it.
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+1 for "...fucking MBA culture..."
Companies that have largely avoided MBA ideology and become wildly successful: Google, Apple (under Steve Jobs, Tesla, Space X, Paypal, Amazon, Netflix...
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So if you are a CEO and you don't have an MBA you surround yourself with them. As Elon and Jeff have done.
All
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Here is a quote from Elon Musk on MBA's:
"I wouldn't recommend an MBA. I'd say no MBA needed. An MBA is a bad idea. [...] It teaches people all sorts of wrong things. [...] They don't teach people to think in MBA schools. And the top MBA schools are the worst. Because they actually teach people that you must be special, and it causes people to close down their feedback loop and not rigorously examine when they are wrong. [...] I hire people in spite of an MBA, not because of one. If you look at the senior managers of my companies, you'll see very few MBAs there."
Source. [aps.org]
"As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don't teach people how to create companies."
And Steve Jobs regularly violated MBA ideology. He was a notorious micromanager, which is exactly what MBA's aren't supposed to do. He personally led a small team of engineers in designing the original iPhone. And we all know how much of a flop the iPhone was.
As for my degree, my field is physics and mathematics. I wouldn't join the MBA cult for anything. LOL GMAT.
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And if you want to know where my animus against MBA's comes from, it is this: In my long time and well considered opinion, MBA ideology is one of the primary causes of the de-industrialization of the United States of America. All that downsizing, exporting of jobs, industrial stagnation, and the lack of stewardship of the conditions necessary for the flourishing of domestic industry...I believe that the MBA mindset is in large part responsible for these things.
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Exactly, he's talking about "R&D" investment with long term payouts.
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I think he's saying that their willingness to go into debt to produce quality content is an indicator that they're confident in the long term results, and that the more often you see this negative cash flow, the better of an indicator (to a degree) it is of their confidence in their growth and future prosperity.
To use your factory analogy, the more factories they build with money from debt, the greater the indicator of their confidence in future success... and while they're building out, they're gaining mor
Re:Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:4, Informative)
That'll be the 5 million new subscribers referenced in the summary then.
Re:Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:5, Insightful)
That statement makes no sense. He's saying his cash flow will be negative because they will be investing in new products. However, new products are not an indicator for success. Sales is!
It's nicer than saying, "We're reinvesting our earnings into the long term growth of netflix rather than pushing net cashflow that can be paid out as investor dividends because I care more about the longevity of Netflix more than your capital gains" to your shareholders.
But shareholders don't want to hear about long term growth or longevity, they want quarterly stock gains and dividends at the expense of all else - which is why our economy is so skewed.
Re:Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's nicer than saying, "We're reinvesting our earnings into the long term growth of netflix rather than pushing net cashflow that can be paid out as investor dividends because I care more about the longevity of Netflix more than your capital gains" to your shareholders.
Most investors will accept that statement eagerly. If investors only cared about dividends, the startups in Silicon Valley would have no funding.
A company flush with cash has two options to make investors happy:
1. Invest the cash into a new area that promises to have a large return on investment (this case).
2. Pay a dividend, or buy back stock.
The worst thing a company can do is sit on loads of cash, like Apple. [fool.com]
Re: Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:1)
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A stockholder isn't the same as an investor. Stop using the terms interchangeably.
Please explain your reasoning.
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There is a thing called google you can use to learn more
Google says your wrong. [wikipedia.org]
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That statement makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense.
He's saying his cash flow will be negative because they will be investing in new products.
And that those products will lead to money in the long-term: "that's a lot of capital up front, and then you get a payout over many years"
However, new products are not an indicator for success. Sales is!
"During Netflix's quarterly earnings call, in which it noted it had added more than five million subscribers in the last three months..." Those are the sales, right? Ideally the new subscribers are going to stay with netflix and keep paying them for a long time.
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Netflix would also have the option of syndicating and selling rights to play its original content on traditional networks if desired or needed for income down the road.
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I think the point is that while that can make sense for 'starting up', at *some* point you have to point and say 'here's where revenue will exceed investment'.
The problem is the statement on its face doesn't imply that the investment will stop.
If their investment outstrips subscription revenue by 2.5 billion annually, well you need to be able to find 2.5 billion worth of new subscribers. That's actually better than reality, as some analysts have noted that license costs grow with subscriber count for shows
Re:Sell! Sell! Sell! (Score:5, Informative)
I think the point is that while that can make sense for 'starting up', at *some* point you have to point and say 'here's where revenue will exceed investment'.
Agreed.
The problem is the statement on its face doesn't imply that the investment will stop.
Not agreed. It just means you need a critical mass of subscribers to support the continued investment.
If their investment outstrips subscription revenue by 2.5 billion annually, well you need to be able to find 2.5 billion worth of new subscribers.
Netflix costs more than $1 / year per subscriber. At the minimum of $8/month, it means they would need an additional ~26 million subscribers, and they got 5 million in the past 3 months. That's without considering the people paying $10 for hd streaming and $12 for 4k streaming, or excluding future price increases once they think they have enough content to keep subscribers with said increase.
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Well, that's also putting the marginal cost of the subscriber at 0. There is some cost for infrastructure that increases with subscriber count, and more dramatic: licensing costs for the content. They are talking a *lot* about 'Stranger Things' which they do outright completely own, but the vast majority of content they provide is licensed, and that licensed content costs money per subscriber. One can imagine how much money they are spending on a per-subscriber basis for Disney alone.... Even the much t
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Well, that's also putting the marginal cost of the subscriber at 0. There is some cost for infrastructure that increases with subscriber coun
I agree, but that number doesn't include things that decrease the cost. You mentioned that costs go up with shows they have to license, but you didn't mention they have to license less shows if they have enough content they own. Original shows like Daredevil are also getting blu-ray releases, and we're not counting the revenue from that, etc.
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Near as I can tell, Netflix licenses Daredevil from Marvel Television. It may be a 'netflix original series', but does not seem to be like Stranger Things where Netflix owns the copyright.
Just because a show is 'Netflix original' does not mean it controls the copyright.
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You have a fair point, you're right about the Marvel series, my bad.
Still, the stuff they do actually produce and own can become additional sources of income.
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Of course, this reaction by people is only partially about Netflix per se. The general sentiment of 'any company is successful if they spend more money than they make' brings back many bad memories of companies that go bust. Netflix would be sorely missed if they got *too* caught up in overspending and failed as a result, but also a company like Netflix reinforcing this concept that is prevalent across the industry contributes to continued unsustainable behavior across companies in the industry, and when
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"During Netflix's quarterly earnings call, in which it noted it had added more than five million subscribers in the last three months..." Those are the sales, right? Ideally the new subscribers are going to stay with netflix and keep paying them for a long time.
This needs to be quantified: 5,000,000 x $10/month = $50,000,000 per month. So Netflix revenues went up $50m per month, in just one quarter. Those are sales indeed.
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However, new products are not an indicator for success. Sales is!
Not exactly; and sales does not necessarily equal good cash flow, although it contributes to it. You can nearly always generate more sales by spending more money on promotions -- more sales, more cash going in, but often even more cash going out.
What's more, sales and profit aren't necessarily the same thing; you can easily go bankrupt while profitable; you can also run a company that loses money for years on end if it has a cash cow.
What businesses need to keep going, day to day, is to meet current obliga
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What's more, sales and profit aren't necessarily the same thing; you can easily go bankrupt while profitable; you can also run a company that loses money for years on end if it has a cash cow.
Actually the former is usually a sign of gross management incompetence. If you're really profitable after paying interest on your debt you're in a liquidity problem because you got assets but not cash. There's usually some form of line of credit, sale and rental/lease-back agreement, joint venture merging your assets with their cash, offering new stock for cash or some other way to liquefy your assets for a price. If you go under it's usually because you're now turning a small profit but you're buried under
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That statement makes no sense. He's saying his cash flow will be negative because they will be investing in new products. However, new products are not an indicator for success. Sales is!
Think about it this way... He's playing the "old saw" that goes like this:
It takes money to make money.
Netflix is spending it's cash on producing new unique products it can use to sell it's service. Netflix will have exclusive rights to products which are in high demand if they spend their cash well and produce things folks want to watch. This takes cash up front and will pay back Netflix out over years of increased subscriber base.
Still, I have to admit that Amazon Prime has more stuff I want to watch t
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Growth is a sign of success. Negative cash flow is a sign of success (or failure). He's saying that in this case, it's success, not failure.
"baffle them with bull$4!7" (Score:2)
total freaking nonsense. what he's saying is, "hey, we can spend really well, and you don't hold us responsible. we like it." I can't get away with that, and neither can you.
kids don't know about budgets. investment analysts ought to.
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If you trust the mgmt that's a valid statement... and surely Netflix mgmt has earned some credibility on the original programming front. I do not get the valuation on the stock at all, but you have to admit that R
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A card is made that allows a low cost consumer computer to work advanced business grade applications.
Design, tooling, testing, coding, packing, sales, postage all has a steep cost at first.
Magazine interviews and trade conventions gets the word out that the product exists, works and fully supports the decades must have business applications.
That a person with a low cost computer with that card can do complex work at home.
Out of that short term design cash flow long term sales profit
Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Works for Amazon.
This is the world's new business model, for better or worse. If you don't run a business this way, you can't compete (with the likes of Amazon & Netflix) and they will crush you. And if you do run a business this way, you might [spectacularly] fail, but if you are able to survive, then you'll be the only player. It's like running a monopoly before it's officially a monopoly (the way Standard Oil used to undercut competitors until they went out of business). You can use debt, equity and VC funding to do this today instead of a monopolist's war chest.
As a major plus to those who make these decisions--the board, the CEO, and the rest of the executive team--they don't care. They get paid handsomely win or lose, and if everything goes bust, they can just spin up the next one while coasting on their ludicrous money from the last job.
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While content may be investing in the future like R&D, its pretty misleading to say that negative cash flow is an indicator of success is misleading. Its entirely possible for them to be burning cash creating content that subscribers aren't interested in watching (and from my subjective opinion that is the case).
I suspect at some point they're going to be forced to disclose some numbers at least in aggregate to show investors that the content is popular and worth the money relative to other content.
It is not the case (Score:2)
Its entirely possible for them to be burning cash creating content that subscribers aren't interested in watching (and from my subjective opinion that is the case).
While even lots of it may be content few really are about watching, do you truly deny that they have SOME content that subscribers are very interested in watching?
Even if you left off Stranger things, they still have a pretty decent number of exclusive Marvel shows that have all been pretty popular. And then they have more artistic stuff that ca
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Even if you left off Stranger things, they still have a pretty decent number of exclusive Marvel shows that have all been pretty popular. And then they have more artistic stuff that can develop a cult following (like "The OA").
I'd say the Marvel shows cater to a niche audience. While I'm sure there are people out there that like Netflix's original content, I just don't know anyone who watches it.
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I'd say the Marvel shows cater to a niche audience.
Judging by the bulk of recent years Hollywood top hits, the rest of the world disagrees with you [the-numbers.com].
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Judging by the bulk of recent years Hollywood top hits, the rest of the world disagrees with you [the-numbers.com]
Except that hasn't translated to TV, see: Smallville, The Flash, Green Arrow, etc.
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While I'm sure there are people out there that like Netflix's original content, I just don't know anyone who watches it.
I find that hard to believe unless you associate with a very small group of people who are significantly a-typical. Have you considered the possibility that there are people that you know who are watching those shows, but for whatever reason they just don't want to talk to you about it?
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Its entirely possible for them to be burning cash creating content that subscribers aren't interested in watching (and from my subjective opinion that is the case).
Netflix knows very well what people are interested in watching. They may make imperfect predictions, but they know what gets streamed.
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Netflix knows very well what people are interested in watching. They may make imperfect predictions, but they know what gets streamed.
And Hollywood has 100-years of knowing what movies people go to yet there are regularly box office bombs? The chairman of Disney had to quit after John Carter, eventually Netflix will have to have similar accountability to their shareholders.
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Netflix knows very well what people are interested in watching. They may make imperfect predictions, but they know what gets streamed.
And Hollywood has 100-years of knowing what movies people go to yet there are regularly box office bombs?
That would fall under "imperfect predictions." Netflix knows very well what is a hit. Nobody knows what will be.
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That would fall under "imperfect predictions." Netflix knows very well what is a hit. Nobody knows what will be.
No one said they didn't. The point is that they are spending money on content that they don't know will pay off, which is why its misleading for Reeds to claim burning cash its in an indication of success
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I suspect at some point they're going to be forced to disclose some numbers at least in aggregate to show investors that the content is popular and worth the money relative to other content.
The thing to remember here, is that a lot of the other content was going away while the US studios tried to fight the rise of Netflix. I still recall how many people here said Netflix wasn't worth the money since it didn't have as many shows as it sued to. Coming up with their own content was really their only option.
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There's still plenty of content, just that there are other competitors, from Amazon and Hulu, to the original networks keeping their libraries instead of renting them to Netflix.
Fake Profits! (Score:1)
"Profits are so 90's, believe me. Losing is winning, and I win by losing bigly! I know more about losing than losers you never hear about. Ya never hear about em', right? They lose wrong, so sad. But everyone knows ME because I do the best losing, beautiful losing!"
pay once, reap forever (Score:2, Interesting)
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I can understand
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Content costs something to produce once and the media companies milk it for ages to come. Thanks to copyright being extended essentially forever it's a great investment.
That used to be the way to do business, I'm not sure it will hold up over time the way things are going. We are already in the middle of a gluttony of excellent TV. There are many excellent shows that I will never have time to watch. Streaming services that self-produce content mean that "reruns" are now available indefinitely, but viewership probably drops off sharply over time. The value of that content declines quite rapidly, so content producers will have to maintain this level of production indefin
ok, and? (Score:3, Insightful)
the only people who don't like the idea of spending X amount of money to make Y amount in returns over a few years time are idiot MBAs that continually screw us over for meaningless quarterly results. The Harvard Business School mentality is like some kind of plague on capitalism.
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MBAs must have been a Communist plot to destroy the West. They make absolutely no sense otherwise.
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MBAs are not what drive quarterly results mentality.
Having worked with bad MBAs, I think you are pretty much wrong. The problem is there are good MBAs, incompetent MBAs, and evil MBAs and they all have different goals. The good MBAs want to grow the company, they like long term investments that are profitable. The incompetent MBAs want to maximize this quarter's results so they look good and can't understand why anybody looks beyond the current quarter. The evil MBAs also want to maximize this quarter's results, but are willing to deliberately sabotage t
oblig (Score:2)
"We lose money on every sale, but make up for it in volume !"
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"We lose money on every user, but make it up in volume."
Yes, it is always true. (Score:5, Interesting)
He is doing his job convincing people there is value created in all those properties. As long as the investors buy that story, it is all hunky-dory.
Debt to Market Cap... (Score:2)
Wow, that is the new measure of low risk ?
i am personally very successful (Score:1)
burning cash is a sign of success
Today I learned that I am personally very, very successful.
(But more seriously, he is not necessarily wrong. Sometimes it is better to re-invest income into things that can generate more of it in the future).
Netflix has maxxed out its credit cards (Score:1)
MBAs (Score:1)
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However, it usually is the MBAs fault and the near term gains philosophies they practice coupled with their ludicrous salary and golden parachutes. Look at HP and Yahoo as two examples. HP in particular was run for decades by it's founders. When they passed away, they started with a parade of MBA CEOs focused on short term gains and pumping up the company stock at the expense of long term viability. They bought a series of other companies, wasting massive amounts of capitol in spectacular failures, cut
I am enormously successful also... just check my (Score:1)
Credit Card Debt - to - Self Image ratio...
Both are astronomical... but the ratio is low.
Umm.. remember Sense8? (Score:1)
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To interpret this for you: "Sense8 didn't make the cut because not enough people were watching it to justify keeping it going and it was losing, not gaining viewers. Netflix still gave it a much longer time to find it's audience than a traditional television show would ever have been given. Instead Netflix is going to put that money in to a new show which will be more likely to grow Netflix's subscriber base than Sense8."
There doesn't seem to be anything inconsistent to me, here. There's a difference be
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To interpret this for you: "Sense8 didn't make the cut because not enough people were watching it to justify keeping it going and it was losing, not gaining viewers. Netflix still gave it a much longer time to find it's audience than a traditional television show would ever have been given. Instead Netflix is going to put that money in to a new show which will be more likely to grow Netflix's subscriber base than Sense8."
There doesn't seem to be anything inconsistent to me, here. There's a difference between investing money in an unproven investment (like a new show) and investing in an investment with a poor track record and slim prospects for improvement.
But that's just the thing, Sense8 and other similar properties on Netflix aren't traditional television shows. The second season was out for a very short time before the cancellation announcement was made. The problem is that Sense8 is never going to be Simpsons or Friends or Sex & The City -- shows that have a small but steady, periodic/episodic viewership over a long period of time. They made the cancellation decision so early that some people I knew hadn't watched the second season -- not from lack o
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Now this is just my guess, but I think they place a very heavy weight on the ability of a show to stop the loss of viewers. I remember it being mentioned that according to their metrics virtually everyone who watched the 5th (I think) episode of Daredevil, finished the entire series. My guess is that Sense8 wasn't doing that. If they were continuing to lose customers all through the series' second season, that might have been a clear enough indication that the situation had little to no hope for improvem
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Great point. Sounds right.
I think for Sense8 in particular, the entire show has more of a cinematic feel than a TV feel. It's a bit more sweeping and suspense-driven (and, to be honest, sex-driven) than a TV show like Daredevil where the viewer KNOWS going into it that this is going to be a long, serialized set of story arcs which are theoretically neverending, just like the comic book genre the show arises from. Daredevil only needs to get you to like the main hero and his sidekicks, and to present compell
Language != Message (Score:2)
Some of y'all are WAY too hung up on the language, rather than on the message conveyed. Just sayin'
Hastings is playing the long game. What I heard is pretty simple - the demand for home grown content is sufficient to forecast sustained profit while burning through cash in order to get there. So then by reason, their expenditures in the near term are indicative of that belief. AND I would agree.
While Hollywood is looking at everything in their catalog to merely remake (poorly), Netflix (and others) who t
Re: (Score:2)
Some of y'all are WAY too hung up on the language, rather than on the message conveyed. Just sayin'
Yes, but if it wasn't for the screwed up wording, this wouldn't be news. The headline would read, "Netflix investing heavily in original content," and no one would care. They've been doing that for some time now.
Re: (Score:2)
I take your point but I always have a chuckle when a remake of a 20 year old BBC show like House of Cards gets passed off as outstanding original content.
Re: (Score:1)
1.) Acquire Customers
2.) Charge them each a subscription fee
3.) PROFIT!!
This is so 1998.
FTFY