Remember all that hand-wringing two years ago when Netflix hit the wall with their subscriber growth and their stock value dropped a ton overnight? Well, a very interesting report from Parrot Analytics last week brought things up to date.
Turns out that Netflix has almost fully recovered its peak share price. Not only that, the streaming giant has grown in market share two quarters in a row, a first in the past five years since the rise of fierce competition from other media conglomorates in the sector.
According to Wade Payson-Denney, PR and Communications manager at Parrot Analytics, “When analyzing key metrics such as subscribers, profitability, and audience demand, it’s clear that Netflix is pulling away from the competition and everyone else is fighting for second place.”
How have they done this? By the same means that got them off to such a fast start in the first place in the streaming industry: overspending. They also kept their cool while others were losing the heads. As Disney, Warners and other big streamers ran into resistence once they tried to raise monthly subscription costs, they fell back on the cash grab that had been working for them before they all tried to bring their content under their own tents — licensing titles to Netflix. The movie and series funnel to all that gold from Warner Bros., Discovery, Paramount Global, Disney, NBCUniversal and beyond started to find its way back to the Big Red N.
Another factor: that password sharing crackdown is apparently working “far better than many anticipated,” according to Payson-Denney’s report, with little impact so far on churn.
Netflix also seemed to fill the content gap caused by the prolonged writers and actors strikes better than their competitors. Here is a look at their recent Top 10 in Canada chart:
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APRIL 8 – APRIL 14, 2024
| # | TV IN CANADA | WEEKS IN TOP 10 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unlocked: A Jail Experiment: Season 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 Body Problem: Season 1 | 4 |
| 3 | Dexter: Season 1 | 2 |
| 4 | The Gentlemen: Season 1 | 6 |
| 5 | Parasyte: The Grey: Limited Series | 1 |
| 6 | Files of the Unexplained: Season 1 | 2 |
| 7 | Neal Brennan: Crazy Good | 1 |
| 8 | RIPLEY: Limited Series | 2 |
| 9 | Baby Reindeer: Limited Series | 1 |
| 10 | Bad Dinosaurs: Season 1 | 2 |
Topping the Netflix pipeline April 8 to 15: several originals, including 3 Body Problem, The Gentlemen and a stylish black and white series getting very strong reviews, Ripley.
Still, by Parrot’s own graphs and charts, it seems that others, including Apple TV+, have also made modest gains in recent quarters. Netflix’s own gains, while an impressive reversal of fortune, are more slow and steady than they were in the giddy days prior to 2019. Still, any gain is apparently significant to stockholders.
Payson-Denney suggests that Netflix’s coverage of a July bout between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul will be worth keeping an eye on to see if there are further gains to be made by a more aggressive move into live event programming. This could be the path forward to bridging further strike-induced delays in scripted productions.
Meanwhile, my favourite graph in the Parrot report:
“Dominating in demand for originals while also re-establishing itself as the go-to home for recent theatrical films, comfort sitcoms and laundry folding procedurals has cemented Netflix as the largest TV network in the world (without any major mergers and acquisitions).”
“Laundry folding procedurals.” Ouch!
