News? From Netflix? After the company s earnings call yesterday, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos sparked some excitement with comments that suggested a company foray into news programming — and CEO Reed Hastings brought up the possibility that Netflix might someday compete with news and culture multimedia magazine Vice, according to Variety.
On the news side, we are definitely being more adventurous about the genres we are going into, Sarandos reportedly said.
But Netflix s PR folks told the Internet — well, the media — to calm down, saying the entertainment provider wasn t exactly talking about doing the nightly news. Here s one of the curb-your-enthusiasm tweets from Jonathan Friedland, chief communications officer for Netflix, Wednesday afternoon.
clarifying that we aren t doing news; but we ve got that edgy and docs
That s true, Netflix is streaming documentaries and newsy entertainment specials. But with tech companies such Apple, Facebook and others increasingly getting into the news biz in some shape or form, it doesn t seem far-fetched to think yet another one would. And especially not for Netflix, which competes with cable channels such as HBO — which does have some news programming.
On the earnings front, Netflix reported yesterday that it didn t add as many subscribers as it expected in the third quarter. It gained 888,000 subscribers in the U.S., less than the 1.15 million it expected.
In its letter to investors, the company chalked up the problem to involuntary churn because of the transition to chip-based cards, which are now rolling out more widely in the U.S. It means the company was unable to collect automatic payments from some subscribers as their old magnetic-stripe credit cards stopped working.
Some analysts weren t buying it: It s just the dumbest thing I ve heard, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said, according to Reuters.
But other analysts said the problem is probably temporary because the transition is a one-time thing. And many of them raised their outlook on the company s shares, according to the Wall Street Journal, based on Netflix s continued international expansion and the popularity of its original content.
Netflix shares are down about 9 percent to $100.18. But the Los Gatos company s stock still is up about 96 percent year over year.
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