Netflix is now the largest streaming service and #1 choice for watching TV. What exactly does this mean in terms of money, though? Well, according to The Economist, the company will be spending "$12bn-13bn this year" on its original content. This is more than any movie studio or TV network on earth spends (the only exception is sports broadcasting).
The amount of content this will produce is also staggering. Netflix will release 82 (!) feature films this year. Compare this to "Warner Brothers, the Hollywood studio with the biggest slate," which "will send cinemas only 23. (Disney, the most profitable studio, is putting out just ten.)" And it doesn't stop there:
Netflix is producing or procuring 700 new or exclusively licensed television shows, including more than 100 scripted dramas and comedies, dozens of documentaries and children’s shows, stand-up comedy specials and unscripted reality and talk shows. And its ambitions go far beyond Hollywood. It is currently making programmes in 21 countries, including Brazil, Germany, India and South Korea.
One of the most interesting things about these numbers is that it's not just quantity with Netflix, it's also quality. Their productions have been awarded Oscars and the people they're signing to make content are among the best (Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhymes, David Letterman and the Obamas, to name a few). $13 billion may still seem like a staggering number, but when you consider the fact that Ryan Murphy signed a deal worth $300 million and Letterman is getting two million an episode, the numbers begin to make a little more sense.
However, like many internet-based companies (ie. Uber), Netflix has never made a profit and is $8.5 billion in debt. The company apparently plugs back it's $14 billion in revenue straight to original content. In the future, according to Goldman Sachs, Netflix "could be spending an annual $22.5bn on content by 2022. That would put it within spitting distance of the total currently spent on entertainment by all America’s networks and cable companies."
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