Netflix To Hike Price Again By December, Jefferies Says 109
In a note to clients, seen by Slashdot, brokerage house Jefferies writes: Netflix's last price hike on the standard plan was in Jan 2022, its ad- supported plan remains the cheapest (among major players) in the industry, and its move into live sports increases pricing power - for these 3 reasons we suspect a price hike in Q4 or December of this year could be coming on the standard plan.
As stated in the Q4 2023 letter (following the announcement of WWE Raw coming in 2025): "As we invest in and improve Netflix, we'll occasionally ask our members to pay a little extra to reflect those improvements, which in turn helps drive the positive flywheel of additional investment." We believe Netflix has been positioning itself throughout this year for a year-end price hike. December / 2025 will have major content releases supporting a pricing increase including the Christmas NFL game, Squid Game 2 on Dec. 26th (season 1 - the #1 watched NFLX show of all time), WWE Raw starting Jan 2025, and Stranger Things 5 coming in 2025 (season 3 / 4 in top 10 of all-time).
As stated in the Q4 2023 letter (following the announcement of WWE Raw coming in 2025): "As we invest in and improve Netflix, we'll occasionally ask our members to pay a little extra to reflect those improvements, which in turn helps drive the positive flywheel of additional investment." We believe Netflix has been positioning itself throughout this year for a year-end price hike. December / 2025 will have major content releases supporting a pricing increase including the Christmas NFL game, Squid Game 2 on Dec. 26th (season 1 - the #1 watched NFLX show of all time), WWE Raw starting Jan 2025, and Stranger Things 5 coming in 2025 (season 3 / 4 in top 10 of all-time).
When you can't grow by attracting new subscribers (Score:4, Interesting)
It's time to raise prices.
Re:When you can't grow by attracting new subscribe (Score:5, Interesting)
From where I sit, it looks like they're trying to make themselves like the old cable companies. And I don't mean by price, I mean adding overpriced crap that few people watch but everybody is forced to pay for. Especially sports, real or otherwise [youtube.com]. Not that I don't play sports, they're just boring as fuck to watch unless you're at a party and there's beer involved. Shit...how much was ESPN at its peak? And that wasn't even sports, it was just news about sports. Or at the very least, if they're going all in on sports crap, put it on a separate subscription. Not a stupid tier/package system either (that WOULD be cable) -- like a whole other service, call it netsports or some shit.
If we go back to that stupid model where you have to pay out the ass for all of the shitty content hardly anybody watches, I'm just going all in back to piracy again. Shit, might have to anyways now that the content industry is paying actors more to do basically half the work that they used to, plus even higher residuals. Only this time, now that FTTP is basically everywhere in the US by now, they won't have the benefit of cable companies trying to throttle torrents.
Re:When you can't grow by attracting new subscribe (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't even know why I have a Netflix subscription right now. This is definitely going to push it over the edge for me though. In our depressed economy, yeah.... raising prices on discretionary spending items probably isn't a great idea to keep customers. LOL!
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't even know why I have a Netflix subscription right now.
Yeah, I'm slowly working through the content that keeps me subscribed. Stuff I've enjoyed:
* Archer
* Arrested Development
* Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
* Bojack Horseman
* Brooklyn Nine-Nine
* Cobra Kai
* Disenchantment
* Loudermilk
* Lucider
* One Piece (both Anime and Live Action)
* Paradise PD
* Resident Alien
* RRR
* Seinfeld
* The Good Place
* The Magicians
* The Umbrella Academy
* Wednesday
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Another fantastic series is:
* Formula 1: Drive to Survive
It is a docudrama so it isn't a boring documentary.
If you like blue humor like Paradise PD then you might enjoy these crass series:
* Big Mouth and the spin-off Human Resources
* Farzar
For humour Dave Chappelle has some funny stuff. Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars getting Coffee seems to be hit and miss. David Letterman's My Next Guest needs no introduction is decent.
I haven't gotten into The Midnight Gospel.
Skip the following, they are hot garbage:
* 1899
Re: (Score:2)
There are so many people who are in the same boat. Netflix is counting on a lot of people deciding not to bother with the hassle of canceling, because it's "less than $20 a month."
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This is true. They did crack down on sharing, which generated a lot of new subscribers. But Netflix knows the trend will not continue, and has announced that they will stop reporting subscriber numbers in 2025 as a result. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/n... [cbsnews.com].
Re:When you can't grow by attracting new subscribe (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do sports always have to ruin everything?
I don't want to pay for sports. I feel like I am being forced to pay for stuff I will never watch. It's cable TV bundling all over again.
A la carte was nice while it lasted...
Re: (Score:2)
A la carte was nice while it lasted...
Was it though?
Instead of paying $100 a month for a cable bundle, with streaming, you have to pay a bunch of individual streamers even more money, to get the content you want.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing like juggling a half dozen streaming services and struggling to find the show you want. "Was it on Prime? Netflix? Roku?..."
Re: (Score:2)
justwatch.com is great for that, just FYI
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but I only wanted half of what was in the bundle, and those 5 services cost less.
Re: (Score:2)
I have about 5 streaming services, plus cablemodem. Overall it's still costing me less than cable used to.
Intentionally Left Blank (Score:5, Informative)
TFA? Where is it?
Or is /. just posting rumors now?
Speculation. (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary says "we expect". Jefferies are investment bankers and these are undoubtedly their market analysts - aka worthless prognosticators.
But it also means they and others like them are probably putting pressure to increase prices because quarterly gains bro. The market doesn't like uncertainty, and going in to an extremely contentious election while the market is currently in a wide spread pull back? That doesn't seem like it would go well for Netflix. See, we can all "speculate".
TL;DR - Netflix didn't say shit. This is clickbait.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"In a note to clients, seen by Slashdot, ..."
The source is withheld; there's no way to verify the claim. The only utility I see is to inspire FUD against Netflix, and to reserve an "I told you so" that can be played or forgotten four months from now. Hell, the words "we suspect" tells me this is an unverifiable statement of a guess. This is a typical level of journalistic scrutiny for one of the slashdot editors.
Still a good deal (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Really? What's on there worth watching? Basically all I use it for is an easier way to put Star Trek TNG on in the background, but it's not worth much more than the $8/month I pay now.
Re: (Score:2)
My wife and I are watching Miss Night and Day.
I'm also watching ST Prodigy.
Re: (Score:2)
Similar here. My son wanted it back after a 6 month break. He rewatches Aquanauts, and that is it. We went looking for anything new for us parents, and still nothing new we really want to bother watching.
Re: (Score:2)
It is great for kids, and is the only reason I have it. There's a lot of good content on there... Story Bots, Cory Carson, Octonauts are all good. But for parents? There's been absolutely nothing appealing since Squid Game in 2021.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? When I was a subscriber, Netflix would conveniently "forget" my settings of not starting a new episode automatically.
There was also no way from stopping Netflix from suggesting new content for the kids.
They would consume much more than they actually wanted because at some point they'd click on an absolute zombie maker of a show and sit there like it was an episode of the Twilight Zone.
I several TB of my own media available on Emby. The more they raise prices, the more my homelab's energy cost is off
Re: (Score:2)
"I guess you had 0 control over what and how much Netflix they were consuming. Yes, blame Netflix."
Managing screen time is a lesson for children to learn. If I give them an hour, I will come back to check after an hour or so. At first it worked fine but whenever Netflix would reset the playing of the next set automatically, it became infinitely harder for them to notice the show breaks.
And if they did, Netflix would hold a new shiny under their nose.
I did not want to have to set a timer all the time. It wou
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sort of the same - Amazon Prime is now ad infested, and the content is waning somewhat. They're still in the running, but seem to be running out of steam. Disney is so terrible the kids won't even watch it (we get D+ on some sort of free deal from time to time - it's almost never watched). We've got the BBC, ITV and Ch4, which all have their own streaming services, which do have some stuff on worth watching from time to time.
Netflix is a long way from perfect, and I'll be annoyed if I've got to pay for
Go for it (Score:3, Insightful)
They just canceled by Basic account so now they get nothing. I fail to see how this is an improvement for them.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a pretty standard move to improve profitability. Have bad customers leave, and determine how highly your high value customers actually value your offerings.
It would seem they have determined that their high value customers are willing to pay more, and that de facto firing their worst customers improved profitability.
Re: (Score:2)
Well if you were their one and only account I'm sure your personal experience would matter to them. As it is it's incredibly likely they're running with the assumption that they'll more than make up for any lost subscribers with the extra revenue this brings in. It's worked for plenty of companies plenty of times.
Re: (Score:2)
They just canceled by Basic account so now they get nothing. I fail to see how this is an improvement for them.
The new version of their letter kicks people down to the ad-supported tier, presumably because too many people just said, "Well I guess I won't keep using Netflix."
From my perspective, though, the entire reason I joined Netflix was to get away from ads, so the ad-supported tier is useless to me.
And the features of the standard plan are also useless to me. The only time I would want a second screen is when my mom is visiting, and she has a Netflix account, so it's mostly just so she doesn't have to sign i
Netflix, now bundled with ESPN (Score:2)
Now this. Why does this keep happening? This seems like too much of a coincidence, there has to be something driving it.
Re: Netflix, now bundled with ESPN (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
ESPN is driving it, no?
No, sports bundling. ESPN was just an example of the practice happening with cable. Try to keep up
They're bundling some WWE stuff into their service and that's part of their justification for their price hike. I know I have no interest in watching oiled up men in tights play grab-ass so if the price hike is too much I'll probably drop my service.
Re: (Score:2)
I have no interest in games on Netflix either. It's just not what I subscribe for.
I also find that I watch Netflix so rarely anymore that the only reason I still subscribe is for family members. I might watch a movie every couple of months or so when there's something I haven't already seen that has more than a 3/10 on IMDB. When the new season of Wednesday drops I'll watch it but I can't think of a single other series on Netflix that is going to get another season that I'm invested in (I'm still sour that
Re: (Score:2)
I feel like all the streaming options are suffering a content shortage although I've never used Disney Plus as I'm not a fan of the company and dont like the direction it feels like it's been steering the whole film industry with the endless format shifting, sequels, and reboots.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd rather watch golf than WWE. And I hate golf.
Re: (Score:2)
Because as a business, your focus is profitability, unless you're willing to undercut that for temporary growth.
That means that you start by growing business to expected size. Then you focus on making it more profitable, by trimming costs that aren't profitable, and by firing customers that aren't profitable. All while ensuring that your offerings are of sufficient value to command a higher premium.
Essentially you find just how much all the customers you attracted in your growth phase are willing to pay for
Re: (Score:3)
firing customers that aren't profitable
If your customers aren't profitable that's your problem, no theirs.
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. That is why you fire them.
Re: (Score:2)
ESPN is already bundled with Disney+, but yeah... I don't want to pay extra for stick and ball sports that I'm not going to watch.
Re: (Score:2)
I left them behind a few months ago. (Score:1)
Woo hoo! (Score:2, Troll)
Keep up those price hikes! For every month I stay unsubscribed, I save more and more!
"I cancelled Netflix years ago" is the hip, new spin on the old "I don't own a television"!
Re: (Score:2)
Man, just thinking about all the things I DON'T subscribe to makes me realize how much money I am saving!
I mean, that private jet that I don't own alone gives me TONS of money in my bank account! Not to mention that private island I don't have to pay for!
stop forcing sports on us! (Score:5, Insightful)
stop forcing sports on us!
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting that Squid Game is the most popular show they ever produced. A Korean language show, although I understand they had a dubbed version.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
stop forcing sports on us!
Why? Sports are a HUGE profit center and Netflix does not need to care about what you want. (they actually do need to care, but it is too hard, so they just don't)
Re: (Score:2)
stop forcing sports on us!
Why? Sports are a HUGE profit center
Is it really? In the rest of the industry, you have companies like Disney that are massively subsidizing ESPN through bundling that forces people who don't watch sports to pay for it, and that's the only reason it makes money. I'm not saying sports is as much of a money-loser as science fiction (which costs a fortune to make and doesn't make up for it in revenue), but I certainly wouldn't ever describe it as a profit center. It brings in subscribers, but that doesn't automatically mean making more money.
Re: (Score:2)
Sports are a HUGE profit center
Then why don't we see an exclusively sports-streaming service that shows sports, sports news, and nothing else? It'd be extraordinarily successful, all on its own, no need for anything else!
Except that's not what happens. Except for ESPN, which seems quite limited, what happens is generic streaming services adding sports content on top, and then charging users who want nothing to do with it more to subsidize the subset of sports-watching users, as otherwise these wouldn't be willing to pay for what their pr
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's sweaty guys in ridiculous outfits... yeah, it's sports.
It's time for rehab (Score:3)
I left Netflix a long time ago and almost came back a few weeks ago, but during the sign up process they required my phone number. They have no reason for having my phone number so I cancelled my sign up and found another solution. You can get any netflix show off usenet and never have to worry about when the next price hike will come.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah the phone number thing is BS. I signed up via VPN through India. It's much cheaper, and it never asked for a phone number. They also don't enforce the "password sharing" detections with an India account, probably because their use of CGNAT makes it almost impossible to restrict logins to specific IPs.
Cancel and move on with your life, (Score:5, Insightful)
Spending any time complaining that it's too expensive, a poor value, or somehow unfair is wasteful. Declaring that this pushes piracy into being justified is just plain stupid. If you are a subscriber, you have the ultimate punishment tool right there in your toolbox. Cancel. Withhold your money.
Some will still find it valuable enough to remain subscribers. Some won't. But of all the things to expend vitriol towards, I just don't get this one.
Re:Cancel and move on with your life, (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Complaining loudly is a way to make other users aware of a problem that they have not yet come across. Usually people are happy to know of a potential problem in their future, and this may even extend to passing along the gist of the complaint to more people down the line until a sizeable portion of the internet is aware of the danger.
When people do not complain but simply act quietly to cancel the service for themselve
Re: (Score:2)
When people do not complain but simply act quietly to cancel the service for themselves, then they are implicitly approving of the company's behaviour and directly allowing as many people as possible to be caught in the trap.
I would suggest they are explicitly disapproving of the behavior, and I'm not sure how raising prices publicly and in advance can be construed to be a trap.
Moreover, many find the occasional vitriol, when done well and in moderation, to be entertaining.
Okay. Granted. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, heaven forbid people talk of their frustrations.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm in favor of blowing off steam through dialog. :)
All I'm saying is that in the litany of things deserving of a good rant, this seems like it should not make the cut.
And you make a good point. At least I'm inferring one. If the act of complaining about it holds enough intrinsic value for you, have at it.
Re: (Score:2)
Well one of the big things that drove people away from cable was sports bundling driving up cable bills. I dont care about pro sports at all so I was definitely one of those folks. What several people like myself are worried about is that this signals a return to being forced to pay for sports bundling once again as the added NFL and WWE content is being used as part of the justification for this price hike.
I think people discussing such things under an article like this makes a good bit of sense and that's
ditched (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Neither does anyone else currently subscribed to Netflix, but how else could you justify yet another price hike so soon after the last one if you don't throw in another shovel of garbage?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"We made a lot of DEI shows, and they were almost universally failures. Someone has to pay for all the work done on them".
Doesn't sound as good.
Re: (Score:3)
DEI must have been banging your wife while you were at work.
Re: (Score:2)
Please stop projecting your weird fetishes.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the idea should be to tell a compelling story. Once you got that down, you can be as diverse and inclusive as you like, people will watch it. Not because it's diverse or inclusive but because it has a compelling story.
Take Star Trek. TOS. That was a revolutionary show back in the days. A black female officer at the height of the civil movement and a Russian navigation officer only a few years after the whole McCarthy era. And let's not forget the first interracial kiss in a nationally broadcast TV sho
Re: (Score:1)
I couldn't care less for WWF or ESPN sports.
technically, wwf is a bunch of roided up men in leotards
Netflix - one more lap 'round the drain. (Score:2)
What was the board meeting for that decision like? (Score:2)
"Ok, folks, we're losing subscribers. Why did people sign up with us in the first place?"
"Well, mostly because they were fed up with cable TV and we offered an alternative that only only let them choose what they wanted to see but was also heaps cheaper."
"Great. So what could we do to be more like cable TV?"
"We could throw in some programs nobody asked for and up the price."
"Perfect, let's do that!"
Re: (Score:2)
This yields... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Even with all the streaming services being both more expensive and having less content than Netflix did years ago streaming is still cheaper and more convenient than cable so it's still the best legal option.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're comparing to cable circa 2010 and later, sure. That was and is overpriced garbage.
If you want to compare it to cable TV prior to Kazaa and broadband internet, not a chance: it had less ads per hour by a lot, and was significantly cheaper (even adjusting for inflation).
There is even less on TV worth watching now, to boot. I'm personally at the point where I'm about done with Netflix, as it's approaching a similar cost/benefit analysis.
That said, our household is not a big media consumer compared to
Re: (Score:2)
Who has time to watch TV?
Most people. It's a very popular activity.
Not paying for sports (Score:2)
They should make sports of ANY kind an "add on" package and let those who watch it pay for it.
Streaming services ARE the new Cable companies. Ads, force sports on you.
What next home shopping channels????
Re: (Score:2)
Why isn't there a sports only streaming service?
Subbing to Peacock for the Olympics was worth it (best coverage ever, all sports, anytime).
Re: (Score:2)
The irony in my case is that I'd be glad to pay a reasonable amount per month to watch the specific sporting events I want to watch.
That's not an option anywhere - you pay insane prices per event, on top of a bundle. It's not worth the squeeze.
I quit (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely get a smart TV. There is so much free content, I just don't get why people even pay for stuff.
So I have a Roku TV, on it are: Plutotv (free shows and movies), Roku Channel (free shows and movies), freevee (owned by amazon, but free shows and movies, also free Amazon shows that you need prime to watch), tubi (free movies and shows).
There is just so so much free content out there. You don't need to pay for a thing to be entertained.
Re: (Score:1)
Absolutely get a smart TV.
He already absolutely has the equivalent of a smart TV, and Netflix just stopped supporting it.
I just don't get why people even pay for stuff.
Fuck ads. Fuck them sideways, backwards, upside-down and in every other direction.
Re: I quit (Score:2)
Cancel button located (Score:2)
rug pull (Score:1)
sure, they lure you in with the cheapy cheap, then they give you pow right in the kisser
Down The Drain (Score:2)
When a paid service adds wrestling and ESPN, it has sounded the bell of the start of its demise. I've been subscribed to Netflix nonstop for fifteen years, but I will likely put it on the 1/12 plan alongside the other streaming services.
The Enshitification Continues (Score:1)
Netflix will end... (Score:2)
Entering the streaming cycle (Score:1)
Given that I don't watch too many running series at one time, I think I'm just going to start cycling streaming services. Stay on Amazon Prime for a while, move onto Netflix for a couple months, wait until some seasons finish up and jump on Crunchyroll for however long.
instead of sports how about good content? (Score:2)
Your own fault (Score:2)
It worked so flawlessly the last time, in the last power struggle Netflix came out on top so now they know they got the upper hand and can get away with anything since the backlash will be completely negligible.
Prepare to open your wallets further!
Re: (Score:3)
No, I'm pretty sure it was the ESPN everybody is walking away from. The redneck-ey stuff.
...and...Lots o' Love to you, too. That is adorable that you ended your post that way. LoL!
Re:How cute... (Score:4, Interesting)
Couldn't be all the WOKE BS everyone walked away from eh?
It isn't. There have been studies of this, amount of wokeness doesn't bother the vast majority of movie and TV viewers, what bothers them is bad writing, bad directing and bad acting. If you doubt this, try this little personal experiment. Pick a local religious TV station or streaming service, a very conservative one at that, and try watching their produced content. Unless you're a devout believer you'll find yourself running from that rubbish in a matter of seconds.
Conversely, well-written, well-directed, well-acted woke content is successful. Barbie is the wokest movie ever and grossed over $1 billion.
The people who most complain about woke content are the loud radical "trad" minority. They're as tiny as the loud radical woke minority, but every bit as annoying.