Netflix has big ambitions and is taking things to a whole new level. The company now plans to increase its spending on developing original content next year, to a staggering $8 billion. With strong third-quarter earnings, the company is investing an additional $1 billion to make it clear that it’s willing to spend a lot of money to own its own content.
Other companies such as Disney are moving towards closed ecosystems, Netflix wants to start being in control of its own destiny. The company wants to offer content that it owns, and won’t have to churn out too much for third-party content. Netflix executives have said that they want their library to have 50 percent original TV and film content by the end of next year. Quite the ambitious goal.
In the third-quarter earnings interview, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos stated that a big chunk of the $8 billion will go towards producing 80 new original films and 30 new anime series, all expected to release in 2018. Generally speaking, Netflix has kept its original offerings under wraps until it’s ready to release, but seeing Sarandos give their plan of action out loud gives us a strong indication on the company’s future.
It’s interesting to see Netflix go towards developing more anime content. The company has had success bringing in Japanese content through licensing deals, and now the company is really ramping up to produce its own anime content to appeal towards the younger market. Generally speaking, the younger viewers traditionally consume Japanese content using piracy, and streaming through service Crunchyroll.
