Equity research company MoffettNathanson is the latest to suggest that Netflix won’t be badly hurt by the ongoing pullback of popular TV shows by the major media conglomerates.
According to a report on the SVOD business ahead of Netflix’s second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, MoffettNathanson said that only four of the top 20 most popular shows on Netflix come from outside suppliers. The top seven series, including Nos. 1 and 2 rankers Orange Is the New Black and Stranger Things, are Netflix original series.
It was recently announced that two of the top 10 shows on Netflix, The Office and Friends, will be yanked back by their respective suppliers, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia, at the end of the year, to be exclusively deployed in these conglomerates’ new streaming services.
But the general consensus among analysts is that Netflix’s multi-billion investment in original series has largely offset the threat posted by Disney +, HBO Max and Comcast’s upcoming OTT service.
“While Friends and The Office remain top shows, Netflix has aggressively invested in original, destination content to grow user engagement,” report author Michael Nathanson wrote. “The risk of losing high-quality comfort content is misunderstood. Library content won’t kill the Netflix U.S. subscriber story. however, it will force them to continually spend on riskier, high-profile concepts, market their shows more aggressively, and allow competitors to copy Netflix’s initial approach in building out their own services.”
For its latest “SVOD Tracker,” MoffettNathanson partnered with research company HarrisX to to poll 11,135 U.S. streaming video consumers.
Notably, a high point of interests for Netflix’s Q2 report is the impact that recent price hikes will have on subscriber growth. According to the research company survey, 70% said they’d be willing to pay even more money for Netflix, with 11% of the base willing to put up with an another increase of $5 or more.
