There are some sentences that feel designed to bring me out in a cold sweat. “X Factor renewed for 10 more years” is one. “BBC One revives I Love My Country” is another. And now to this list we can add “Netflix eyeing total of about 700 original series, movies in 2018” to the list.
That’s Variety’s headline, citing Netflix’s plan to swamp its service with $8bn (£5.8bn)-worth of content before the end of the year. Seven hundred new pieces of content, ranging from standup specials to foreign imports to TV shows to films. Seven hundred. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m terrified.
First, obviously, I’m terrified for me. When I started writing about television a decade ago, it was possible for me to watch most things and assume that people would know what I was referring to when I wrote about them. That is no longer the case – now, every show I write about has to be explained, usually with information about the service it runs on – but this news makes me feel like I’m drowning. Seven hundred new films and TV shows in a year is roughly two a day – on Netflix alone. That’s like trying to watch all of YouTube. If you pride yourself on being able to keep up with the cultural conversation, you have only two choices. First, you can vow never to leave your house. Second, you can prepare to ignore a hell of a lot of rubbish.
This is another reason I’m worried. To some extent, Netflix used to be seen as a real challenger to prestige cable networks. It had a vice-like grip on quality control. Shows such as Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards were knotty and challenging and easily the equal of anything put out by HBO. Already we’re seeing that start to dissolve. Netflix’s movie-acquisition policy, for example, is dismal. Its three big films of the last few months – Bright, The Cloverfield Paradox and Mute – have all been abject messes. As a result, Netflix is gaining a reputation as a provider that throws buckets of money at stuff nobody else wants. That’s a tricky corner to paint yourself out of.
Third, if this isn’t an unsustainable land-grab, I don’t know what is. Netflix has defended this tidal wave of new content by arguing that it will bring in new subscribers. Even though Netflix ended 2017 with 117.6 million subscribers, its chief financial officer, David Wells, cited the 700 million users with access to broadband as an end goal, saying: “There’s more non-members than members of Netflix”. But for Netflix to get its money back – along with the $8bn content spend, another $2bn is going on marketing – it will need to almost double the number of existing subscribers. I’ll go out on a limb and argue that not that many people are desperate to watch Mute.
You’re left with the sensation that Netflix simply wants to suffocate the competition. It wants to crush under a sack of money all the smaller streaming services that have begun to nip at its heels. It wants to be a monopoly, and if that means spending above its means to get there, then that’s what it will do. But it’s risky. From a business perspective, there’s a chance that it will burn through its cash too quickly and flame out. And that leaves the door wide open for a new challenger.
Now that Netflix is less a network and more a fat bucket of catch-all content where quality is rapidly becoming an afterthought, other services have the chance to concentrate on prestige. If, say, Amazon Prime doubled down and became a carefully curated collection of 15 to 20 amazing, buzzy, auteur-driven dramas and comedies – if it became the equivalent of HBO in its heyday – that might be a more attractive proposition. Wouldn’t you rather spend your money on that than give it to the dummies who figured The Cloverfield Paradox was worth $50m? I know I would.