Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos claims they are “better prepared than most” studios should the writers’ strike pull through and bring several Hollywood productions to a halt. During his earnings review for Q1 2023, the executive noted how the streaming platform would fare if the work disruption situation becomes a reality and noted the wide range of upcoming movies and shows that would keep disruptions to a minimum. For the uninitiated, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has voted overwhelmingly to go on strike as a last resort when negotiations for significant changes to a writer’s compensation for their work do not end favorably.
“We respect writers and we respect them WGA and we couldn’t be here without them,” Sarandos said during the review meeting (via IndieWire). “But if there is one, we have a large base of upcoming shows and films from around the world so we can probably serve our members better than most. We really don’t want that to happen, but we have to make plans for the worst, so we have a pretty robust release list that will stay with us for a long time.” 2023 would be the writers’ strike Hollywood’s first hiatus since 2007, which left then-late-night comedians and actors with no jokes or lines to recite. The current deal between studios and writers ends May 1, which would then lead to a strike if the two parties can’t agree on a new deal that reverses the trend of falling writer salaries.
Almost 98 percent of members voted to go on strike, an overwhelming sum that would drastically hurt studios that never planned ahead. acc The Hollywood Reporter, Rumors of a possible writers’ strike have been swirling for months, prompting companies to stockpile scripts and give early greenlights to renewals. Netflix appears to be the only studio that could still thrive in these harsh conditions, given its penchant for planning projects well in advance of release. “One of the benefits of releasing our series concurrently is that we’re working very far ahead of our release cycle,” Sarandos said during a peak-of-the-year Netflix 2020 earnings call COVID-19 Pandemic.
Additionally, the Venkatesh and Rana Daggubati led Rana Naidu was renewed for a second season after being ranked No. 1 for most-watched series in India for three consecutive weeks. “India is a big prize because it’s a huge population of entertainment-loving people and you just have to have the product they love,” Sarandos said at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Netflix has also decided to retire its 25-year operation DVD rental, which makes sense given that the physical media business has fallen short since the dawn of digital streaming — even more so during the pandemic. The company will ship its final discs on September 29th with the official blog post notes that over 5.2 billion DVDs have shipped to date. It accepts DVD returns until October 27th. A report suggested Netflix earned US$145.69 million (about Rs.1,196 billion) in 2022, down 20 percent year-on-year.
Earlier this weekAnalysts predicted that Netflix would add 2-3 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2023. However, the updated numbers fell behind a bit, coming in at 1.75 million new memberships, marking the first quarter for which the streamer didn’t provide internal estimates. Per IndieWire. The company also delayed its plans to crack down on US password sharing until the second quarter.
