The business suffered four disasters, and "Squid Game" saved Netflix's life

I believe that many people have seen the film "Aquaman". The tenderness of the hero Jason Momoa in the film has touched the hearts of many audiences. Recently, he is busy filming "Aquaman" in the UK. During the sequel to Aquaman, I didn't expect to be diagnosed with new coronary pneumonia. According to the British "Sun" report, Jason Momoa was tested positive and is currently in isolation. Although his physical condition is not serious, the production company I was worried that the outbreak of the epidemic on the set would affect the tight shooting schedule, so I was trying to figure out how to shoot other parts first without Jason Momoa. At the same time, I hope that he will recover as soon as possible and return to the set as soon as possible.

Netflix has spent a lot of money in the field of original films in recent years, recruiting big Hollywood filmmakers, and the production budget of each work is higher than that of the other, including the "Hunger Games" series director Francis Lawrence, "Water". Slumberland , a fantasy adventure film starring Jason Momoa.

My daughter works in the costume department of Netflix. She said that the costume department staff have to contact a lot of actors every day, and they need to configure costumes and appearances for them. The actors come from all over the world, especially the number of extras is often hundreds of people. In this case, it is most likely to cause cross-infection, so all staff must undergo mandatory regular screening, twice a week, before going to work on Mondays and Thursdays, and the company is responsible for the cost.

Although the epidemic has slammed the global economy, Netflix's performance is enviable. Recently, it has benefited from the red effect of the Korean original drama "Squid Game", which has caused Netflix's stock price to soar. The stock price closed at $610.34 on September 30. After stepping into the $600 mark, the stock price has been rising steadily since then, and the day before yesterday, it braved the historical peak of 690.31.

Netflix has achieved today's results, but it has not been easy. It has experienced many ups and downs in its 24 years of operation. The main impact is the threat from the four major film and television media giants including Amazon, Blockbuster, YouTube and Disney:

First calamity: When Netflix was founded in 1997, it was just a DVD rental shop in the coastal town of Scotts Valley, California. It provided online rental and sales services with a large inventory of DVDs, and the business took off smoothly, but Amazon also stepped into DVD sales the following year. In the field, it had a positive impact on Netflix's sales business. In the end, Netflix had to give up the DVD sales and shifted its business focus to the rental aspect, and changed the original one-time payment model to a membership subscription system and a personalized recommendation service, which finally resolved the problem. Amazon's threat, escaped the fate of being acquired by Amazon.

Second robbery: After getting rid of the threat of Amazon, another competitor of Netflix, "Blockbuster", appeared. It is the largest video rental company in the United States. The physical stores are located in major cities across the United States. The physical stores are the best channel for cash flow. At that time, when digital technology was not yet popular and online viewing was immature, Blockbuster’s operation method was the most reliable, so Netflix intended to merge with them, and then prepare to list on the Nasdaq stock market, but in 1999, the Internet bubble Explosion, the merger plan failed, and the listing plan also fell through. Soon Blockbuster went bankrupt due to excessive business expansion, and finally declared bankruptcy.

The third disaster: In 2000, Netflix tried to send movies to ordinary people's homes through the Internet, but due to the limitations of broadband, the project failed. In 2005, YouTube was born again. In just one year, in 2006, its video views caught up with the number of paying users that Netflix had accumulated in eight years, and it strongly competed with Netflix for online video customers. Witnessing Blockbuster's bankruptcy experience, Netflix had long anticipated that the DVD era was about to decline. The management decided that in the future, the business would need to transform in the direction of streaming media in order to continue to survive. In 2007, Netflix launched an online movie viewing service. In 2008, it officially began the era of combining software and hardware for streaming media. It implanted its own software into network terminal devices, including TVs, computers, mobile devices, and game consoles, and made large acquisitions. Many classic movie rights, including Disney's 2016-2018 series on its exclusive US pay-TV service, in 2010 Netflix became the largest nightly streaming platform in North America.

Fourth robbery: In 2017, the media giant Disney began to deploy streaming media, launched ESPN+, a sports subscription platform, and Disney+, a content subscription platform for Disney, and took over 60% of Hulu’s equity to provide R-rated and adult content. The three-in-one layout base Covers almost all moviegoers. Netflix can't think of a partner that once became the biggest enemy in the market. The worst thing is to come. In 2019, Disney announced that after the agreement with Netflix expired, it would no longer continue to cooperate. This move has caused great damage to Netflix. The impact of Netflix has left only the other two film and television giants Universal and Warner in the supply of classic original series, which also means that Netflix will completely lose all movie rights of Marvel and Disney series.

Faced with sudden competitors, it is bound to hurt the stickiness of Netflix users. Fortunately, under the effect of "Squid Game", Netflix has given a boost, but facing Disney, a powerful opponent, the road Netflix will take in the future may be more difficult than before.