Business of Media
Netflix shares jump as it gains 2.4 million subscribers
Netflix stemmed its subscriber losses in the third quarter, as popular programmes including the fourth season of Stranger Things and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story helped it add 2.4 million members, reports the Financial Times’ Christopher Grimes.
The result was more than double the number of subscribers Netflix had forecast, leaving it with 223 million paying members at the end of the third quarter, up 2.6 per cent from a year earlier.
The company expects to reach 227 million by the end of the current quarter, according to its earnings release on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT).
“Thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters,” said Reed Hastings, chief executive, during a video call with investors. “We’re back to the positivity.”
Netflix shares rose as much as 15.5 per cent in after-hours trading in the US.
The great Netflix debate: Do its movies belong in theaters?
Inside Netflix Inc.’s movie studio, top executives lobbied Ted Sarandos, the company’s co-chief executive, for much of this year to experiment with releasing more Netflix original movies broadly in theaters, report The Wall Street Journal’s Robbie Whelan and Sarah Krouse.
They outlined their case in a memo shared in June on the company network. Some argued that Netflix is leaving hundreds of millions in box-office receipts on the table with its current strategy of showing only select movies in a few hundred theaters for at most a few weeks before streaming them, according to people familiar with the matter. Other executives thought showing movies in more theaters would create valuable buzz for the streaming service.
Soon after, in an internal meeting, Sarandos told Netflix studio leaders that he had doubts, and still felt that streaming is the future of entertainment, movies included. Instead, he suggested that studio chief Scott Stuber and other executives meet with their counterparts at Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. to see if they would agree to let Netflix stream Sony’s movies just four to six weeks after they came out in theaters, instead of after six to eight months, as spelled out in a partnership the two studios reached last year.
‘Rupert Murdoch has come out of hibernation’: Top analyst backs Fox-News Corp merger
Britain’s most respected media analyst, Claire Enders, has backed Rupert Murdoch’s proposal to merge Fox Corporation and News Corporation, labelling the potential deal “tremendous” and said it signalled that he had emerged from hibernation, reports Nine Publishing’s Anne Hyland.
Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis who has worked in and analysed the media and telecommunications’ sectors for the past four decades, met News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson and News UK chief executive Rebekah Brooks on Monday to discuss the deal.
“Rupert Murdoch has come out of hibernation,” Enders said. “COVID was a period of hibernation, and his then wife [Jerry Hall] exercised a degree of control over his movements, which became the cause of the divorce. He is 10 times more directly engaged with the business than he was during the COVID years. Talking to Robert Thomson, there’s no question that this is all Rupert Murdoch, and that he’s very actively engaged in this process. The transaction is definitely going to be happening.”
See Also: Murdoch controlled News Corp and Fox Corp investigate possibility of a merger
“Skyrocketing” investments in 3D content are brand “essential”
With the 3D industry expected to reach over US$200 billion by 2026, it’s no surprise that creatives and brands are looking to double down on immersive content experiences, reports News Corp’s Pippa Chambers.
From The Coca-Cola Company, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, and more, many global brands have already been boosting their investments in 3D content to become metaverse-ready – but this is only the beginning according to brands and top execs at the Adobe Max creative conference in LA.
Speaking at the hybrid in person and online event, chief product officer and executive vice president of Creative Cloud at Adobe, Scott Belsky, said a “3D creative revolution” was underway and that most companies were only just “scratching the surface of 3D’s potential”.
Singapore is becoming a key regional co-producer
International co-productions are now the bread and butter of the content industry, offering direct access to new markets and audiences. With the regional headquarters of studio heavyweights like Netflix, The Walt Disney Co. and HBO Asia in its backyard, Singapore has emerged as a key player in matchmaking global projects with local companies and talent, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s Sara Merican.
However, given the city-state’s relatively small population — 5.7 million — and high market saturation, Singapore’s position in the regional content industry is unique, with many overseas studios seeking partnerships with Singaporean companies but not prioritizing the domestic market at all. Realistically, most international partners operating in Singapore are looking for stories, eyeballs and revenue streams elsewhere — most often, in the more populous countries of surrounding Southeast Asia.
To meet the complexities and challenges of such a position, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has invested heavily in local media companies through schemes like the Capability Partnership Programme. Funding and benefits provided by these government-run schemes allow domestic SMEs to gain equity in projects and assert themselves as influential creative collaborators in the regional content industry, instead of being relegated to mere facilitators.
Radio
Kyle Sandilands responds to Abbie Chatfield’s controversial interview
Kyle Sandilands has taken a surprisingly soft stance on Abbie Chatfield after the Bachelor star said she was “continually disappointed” in the radio shock jock, reports News Corp’s Lexie Cartwright.
Emerging radio superstar Chatfield, 27, hit out at Sandilands, 51, in an article published Monday, telling the Daily Telegraph she was “baffled” he manages to keep his high-paying gig.
The Masked Singer Australia judge questioned why radio bosses don’t reprimand Sandilands for his controversial comments on-air, but has since watered down her statement, saying her quotes were conversational rather than an “aggressive rant”.
“We’ve had her on this show. She’s a nice kid,” Sandilands said.