Netflix just saw its share price tumble tremendously on news that it lost subscribers (about 200,000 of them, for the first time in a decade. The company announced that in a letter to shareholders, saying:
“Our revenue growth has slowed considerably as our results and forecast below show.
[…]In the near term though, we’re not growing revenue as fast as we’d like. COVID clouded the picture by significantly increasing our growth in 2020, leading us to believe that most of our slowing growth in 2021 was due to the COVID pull forward. Now, we believe there are four main inter-related factors at work.
[…]macro factors, including sluggish economic growth, increasing inflation, geopolitical events…and some continued disruption from COVID are likely having an impact as well.
On the note of Russia, the company lost 700,000 subscribers in Russia when it pulled out of that country following the commencement of hostilities. Reporting on that, CNBC said:
The company also said it expects to lose 2 million subscribers in the second quarter. A loss of 200,000 compared with 2.73 million adds expected, according to StreetAccount estimates. Netflix previously told shareholders it expected to add 2.5 million net subscribers during the first quarter. Analysts had predicted that number will be closer to 2.7 million. The company said that the suspension of its service in Russia and the winding-down of all Russian paid memberships resulted in a loss of 700,000 subscribers. Excluding this impact, Netflix would have seen 500,000 net additions during the most recent quarter.
Well, shareholders were not particularly happy with those results, so the shares sold off, plummeting 20% in a day on the bad news.
Elon Musk, predictably, used the company’s decline to bash wokeness, saying:
The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable
The woke mind virus is making Netflix unwatchable
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2022
Indeed. Like many woke companies, Netflix seems to have focused on producing content that will please the woke crazies (think of its pedo show Cuties) rather than hold the interest of the average consumer. Perhaps it could have gotten away with that when there was no competition, but now there’s plenty of competition, with some of the competitors doing a slightly better job producing content that’s interesting instead of woke.
Unfortunately for Netflix shareholders, management seems to be planning on doing more of the same. In the same letter to shareholders, the Netflix executives said:
Our plan is to reaccelerate our viewing and revenue growth by continuing to improve all aspects of
Netflix – in particular the quality of our programming and recommendations, which is what our members value most. On the content side, we’re doubling down on story development and creative excellence, which we see reflected in big Q1’22 TV hits like Bridgerton
Were the company to do a bit of soul-searching based on Elon’s tweet, perhaps such a strategy would work. The content Netflix is producing is, after all, the problem. But, based on their choosing “Bridgerton,” a woke show, as an example, that seems unlikely. Rather, it seems Netflix will just keep pouring more dollars into woke programming that makes consumers cut the Netflix cable.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
This story syndicated with permission from Will, Author at Trending Politics