Netflix Knows Its Originals Output Has Slowed—but Reinforcements Are on the Way

During its quarterly earnings call Tuesday afternoon, Netflix blamed its tepid subscriber growth of less than 4 million new global subscribers on Covid-19-related production slowdowns that made the service’s content pipeline sluggish in early 2021. But new shows and movies are hurtling toward the streamer soon. “A lot of the projects we'd hoped to come out earlier did get pushed because of the postproduction delays and the Covid delays in production,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors Tuesday during a pretaped video interview. “We think we'll get back to a much steadier state in the back half of the year, and certainly in Q4, where we've got the returning seasons of some of our most popular shows.” Some of those shows, including new seasons of fantasy drama The Witcher, Karate Kid spinoff Cobra Kai and psychological thriller You, are expected to buoy Netflix’s subscriber base, the company told investors. The first season of The Witcher was viewed by 76 million Netflix subscriber households in its first four weeks on the service, the company previously reported, one of the highest-performing originals on the service to date, beat only by the freshman season of the Shondaland historical romance Bridgerton, which drew 82 million households in four weeks. Netflix Says Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton Is Biggest Original Series Ever Also coming to the streamer in the second half of the year is the action comedy Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, and Chris Hemsworth’s Escape from Spiderhead, Sarandos noted. The return of those shows and the release of those films won’t arrive in time to help Netflix’s second quarter subscriber numbers. The streamer has projected it will only add about 1 million new subscribers in the second quarter before the stronger second half of the year, a remarkably low projection following months of pandemic-fueled subscriber growth. Still catching up The short-term conundrum for Netflix in terms of its delayed content lineup highlights how extensive the effects of Covid-19 will be along entertainment industry’s production pipeline, the lengths of which vary depending on which streamer or network you talk to. NBCUniversal’s streamer Peacock saw its launch-day originals slate “materially limited” because of production delays, while most of network television’s fall slate was awash with scheduling adjustments to account for delayed show returns. Some streamers have been able to make up for lost time by leaning in on other formats, including animated series that were able to continue production in some fashion remotely—although some delays were still present. And Netflix had previously been able to dodge some immediate effects of production slowdowns because it works on projects so far in advance, Sarandos had previously told investors. Even though the industry is optimistic due to the rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations and a back-to-business approach, the effects of a year of complicated production are sure to be felt for a while longer. “I think the shape of the mix of the content became a little more uncertain,” Sarandos said. “And then the long-term impacts of the Covid shutdown are also becoming a little more uncertain in that timeframe in the first half of this year.” With that said, Netflix is investing heavily to ensure that its content production pipeline is even bigger in the coming months and years. The streamer is planning to spend an eye-popping $17 billion on original content in 2021, the company told investors this week, and is back in production in every market around the world except for Brazil and India.