What happened to Netflix? How did it happen that its stock dropped from nearly $700.oo a share to less than $400.oo a share. That is a crash. It is not just a correction.
One reason, Holman Jenkins remarks, is that the world can only support so many streaming services. How many do you subscribe to? And why is it necessary to subscribe to so many services when each one has barely a handful of shows that you might ever want to watch.
Because, that is the bottom line. Jenkins is quite right to point out that Netflix has been producing garbage. The company has unlimited funds, but its largesse has merely exposed the fact that there is not enough talent out there to keep producing very many quality shows. And that is the case even though Netflix has enough clout to produce shows around the world. If it were just American talent, the company's stock would have cratered ages ago.
He explains:
This is where Friday’s Netflix wipeout is a harbinger, with a 20% drop in the streamer’s share price, worth $44 billion, because investors questioned whether subscriber growth can justify the billions Netflix keeps investing in new content.
In the year just ended, a record 559 scripted series were produced, most of which were not worth watching or did not sustain interest past the first few episodes. Unlimited dollars may exist to produce such shows but not unlimited talent to make them good, or to sustain the number of subscription streaming services competing to be among the likely handful of survivors.
While we are here, let’s not overlook the fact that Netflix has also gone woke. How many of its shows are feminist fairy tales, with strong empowered women saving the day, beating up men who are twice their size, running the world, solving all problems-- all the while being irresistible to men, having great husbands and great children.
And how much of the content represents what Peggy Noonan aptly called “moral harassment.” By that she meant that these shows present that world as the diversity crowd would like it to be. If your world is not as diverse as what you see on your television set, you can feel yourself condemned as a bigot.
So, the novelty has worn off. Netflix has gone woke. The competition has stiffened. And the company is in trouble. Richly deserved, I dare say.
Interesting, when the number 1 show on Netflix, the last couple of weeks, has been Cobra Kai.
ReplyDeleteActing is pedestrian, but the writing is above average.
2 of the 3 main characters are "fossil" men's men.
Of course Machachio's character is somewhat woke, but even near the end of the present season he gains some masculine energy.
And of course the number 1 show right now on all networks is Yellowstone, which is not very woke.
Seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.
Gratuitous use of the "eff" word turned Yellowstone into garbage.
ReplyDeleteI thought about getting Netflix, but decided I didn't care to get it. I see I was right to do without.
ReplyDeleteWoke Netflix.
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
You only need to see their "calls" for scriptwriters and what they are looking for. Any show idea from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s would automatically be rejected as racist, or whatever.
Go woke, go broke.
Peter
Just spit-ballin,you understand...but I'm gonna guess it has something to do with that freight train to hell Netflix got on with the film
ReplyDelete"Cuties".
"the world can only support so many streaming services. How many do you subscribe to?" Indeed. Streaming has gone from a tech novelty to a commodity. Our household subscribes to five streaming services on pay-by month plans. For any given month, only one or two are active. So we may start a series at the beginning of a month, binge say 12 episodes over the month, then suspend the subscription, moving to watch another series on another service. So each service may get only perhaps 10-20% of a full annual subscription. I am sure that we are not alone in this.
ReplyDelete