Not to be outdone by the competition,Netflixis spending a mind-melting amount of money on content this year. For several years now, Netflix has been the unquestioned king of the streaming game. Much of that has to do with the fact that they have curated a massive library of highly desirable original content. But that content doesn’t come cheap, as is evidenced by a new forecast of the company’s 2020 financials.
As per Wall Street firm BMO Capital Markets, Netflix is expected to spend $17.3 billion on content in 2020. B, with a big old B. That is up from $15.3 billion in 2019. What’s more, BMO doesn’t expect this trend to taper off anytime soon. Their recent forecast suggests thestreaminggiant will be spending $26 billion by 2028. In recent years, the company has been outspending every other studio in Hollywood. Disney may be the king of the box office, but they invest more strategically in movie and TV projects. With Netflix, it’s a different story, and a story that has a changing narrative as we head into a new decade.
Netflix, because of the competition going into business for themselves, will be losing quite a bit of licensed content, such as all Disney content, includingStar Warsand Marvel titles. Plus,The Officeis heading toPeacockandFriendsis moving to HBO Max. That might explain the need to ramp up spending in 2020. The $17.3 billion figure accounts for all content spending, which includes what they’ll spend on licensing deals. But the report notes that the lion’s share of that money will go toward funding original content.
2019 saw the streaming service release a number of splashy movies and TV shows, includingThe Irishman,Triple Frontier,El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, new seasons ofStranger Things,Orange Is the New BlackandMindhunter, amongst many others. Some of those worked out better than others.The Irishman,The Two PopesandMarriage Storyhave beenbig favorites this awards season, with all three titles scoring several Oscar nominations. Since Netflix rarely releases ratings information, it’s hard to know what qualifies as money well spent. The big question is, at what point will this spending result in another price increase? This news comes to us viaVariety.
