April 19, 2022

Netflix Rocked By Subscriber Loss, May Offer Cheaper Ad-Supported Plans

(finance.yahoo.com)

 

(Reuters) – Netflix Inc said inflation, the war in Ukraine and fierce competition contributed to a loss of subscribers for the first time in more than a decade and predicted deeper losses ahead, marking an abrupt shift in fortune for a streaming company that thrived during the pandemic.

The company said it lost 200,000 subscribers in its first quarter, falling well short of its forecast of adding 2.5 million subscribers. Suspending service in Russia after the Ukraine invasion took a toll, resulting in the loss of 700,000 members.

Wall Street sent Netflix’s stock tumbling 26% after the bell on Tuesday and erased about $40 billion of its stock market value. Since it warned in January of weak subscriber growth, the company has lost nearly half of its value.

The lagging subscriber growth is prompting Netflix to contemplate offering a lower-priced version of the service with advertising, citing the success of similar offerings from rivals HBO Max and Disney+.

“Those who have followed Netflix know that I’ve been against the complexity of advertising, and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. “But, as much as I’m a fan of that, I’m a bigger fan of consumer choice.”

Netflix offered a gloomy prediction for the spring quarter, forecasting it would lose 2 million subscribers, despite the return of such hotly anticipated series as “Stranger Things” and “Ozark” and the debut of the film “The Grey Man,” starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling. Wall Street targeted 227 million for the second quarter, according to Refinitiv data.

The downdraft caught other video streaming-related stocks, with Roku dropping over 6%, Walt Disney falling 5% and Warner Bros Discovery down 3.5%.

Hastings told investors that the pandemic had “created a lot of noise,” making it difficult for the company to interpret the surge and ebb of its subscription business over the last two years. Now, it appears the culprit is a combination of competition and the number of accounts sharing passwords, making it harder to grow.

By: Dawn Chmielewski and Tiyashi Datta

Continue Reading at finance.yahoo.com

Los Angeles On-Location Filming Set First-Quarter Record, FilmLA Says

(deadline.com)

 

On-location film and TV production in Greater Los Angeles is off to a “strong start” in 2022, with 9,832 days of on-location shooting setting an all-time first-quarter record according to the latest report from FilmLA, the city and county film permit office. That topped the previous first quarter mark set in 2016 but was down 8.8% from the record-setting 10,780 shoot days racked up in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Shoot days in the first three months of this year were up 40.2% compared with the first quarter of 2021, when the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus led to a voluntary filming hiatus that slowed production to just 7,011 shoot days for the quarter and were 9.7% higher than the five-year average of first quarters.

“The potential for another Covid-related cutback had us eyeing the first quarter with concern,” FilmLA president Paul Audley said. “But with strong protective protocols in place, the industry was in a good position to weather the post-holiday Omicron surge.”

Most of the first quarter’s gains, however, came in a FilmLA category that generates relatively few jobs: the “other category,” which includes still photography shoots, student films, music and industrial videos and documentaries. Those shoot days posted a whopping 115.1% gain from a year ago – 3,608 vs. 1,677. Factoring out that increase results in a first quarter that wasn’t much better than the first three months of 2021.

On-location TV shoot days were up 18.7% over the same three-month period last year, with reality shows logging a 71.7% quarterly increase and a 139% gain over the five-year average. (That average excludes the year 2020, when production was suspended in Los Angeles County between mid-March through mid-June due to Covid-19.)

TV reality projects that filmed locally include Basketball Wives, Celebrity IOU, Family or Fiancé and People Magazine Investigates. Unlike films and scripted TV shows, however, reality shows aren’t eligible for the California’s film incentives.

Episodic dramas were down 12.3% from the first quarter of 2021 but posted an 8.6% increase over the five-year average. TV dramas that filmed locally included American Horror Stories (FX), Little America (Apple TV+), Perry Mason (HBO), Promised Land (ABC/Hulu), S.W.A.T. (CBS), and The Flight Attendant (HBO Max).

By: David Robb

Continue Reading at deadline.com

Los Angeles Feature Shoot Days Decline, But Overall Filming Hits Record

(hollywoodreporter.com)

Filming for TV shows continued to rise in the first quarter of 2022, while feature film production kept on a steady downward trajectory.

First-quarter filming in Los Angeles set a new record to start the year despite an escalating slide in feature film production.

Local film office FilmLA attributed the drop-off to productions being lured by more attractive tax incentives in other jurisdictions and a shortage of soundstage space in the area. According to a new report issued on Tuesday, feature film shoots saw a 25 percent dip below the five year average in the first quarter of 2022.

“It’s doing really well worldwide, but we’ve lost our share of it for years now,” FilmLA president Paul Audley tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Although the pace of production has slowed compared to the end of last year, output is much higher so far than it was in the same period in 2021 when the spread of the Delta variant led to a voluntary filming hiatus that slowed production to just 7,011 shoot days. FilmLA reported that the first quarter of 2022 was the busiest first quarter ever, with 9,832 shoot days. The last time there was such high filming levels from January through March was in 2016.

Although the pace of production has slowed compared to the end of last year, output is much higher so far than it was in the same period in 2021 when the spread of the Delta variant led to a voluntary filming hiatus that slowed production to just 7,011 shoot days. FilmLA reported that the first quarter of 2022 was the busiest first quarter ever, with 9,832 shoot days. The last time there was such high filming levels from January through March was in 2016.

Locally filmed projects include Netflix’s Me Time, Home Delivery, Love Me to Death and Rooming with Danger.

Television has become a mainstay of production in Los Angeles, filling the gap that the flight of feature film shoots have left. Audley said the first quarter filming record is at least partially a result of a backlog of productions that pivoted to shooting locally after realizing that going elsewhere would be more costly and troublesome because of COVID-19 restrictions.

“As the COVID era continued, a lot of productions couldn’t leave their base,” Audley said. “They’d have to quarantine for two weeks if they went to other parts of the country. Those productions ended up staying here in LA.”

Production for HBO’s The Flight Attendant moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2021.

FilmLA reported that filming for episodic dramas saw a 8.6 percent increase over the five-year average, owing to a significant demand for content on streaming platforms. TV dramas that filmed locally include FX’s American Horror Stories, Apple TV+’s Little America, HBO’s Perry Mason, ABC’s Promised Land and CBS’ S.W.A.T.

Tax incentives are a significant driver of local TV dramas choosing to shoot in Los Angeles. Shows receiving tax credits generated 499 shoot days for the quarter, representing 39 percent of all activity in the category.

California bolstered in July the Film & Television Tax Credit program with an additional $180 million in incentives on top of the $330 million already earmarked for the industry. Part of the program is geared specifically toward incentivizing TV productions to relocate to California.

As in recent quarters, TV reality production continued to significantly escalate. Filming for the category increased 71.7 percent, with 2,600 shoot days to start the year. Projects that filmed locally include Basketball Wives, Celebrity IOU, Family or Fiancé and People Magazine Investigates.

“Seeing cycles in production for all of these [categories] is not unusual,” Audley said. “The explosion of reality tv has to do with covid era where they could do those productions with not a lot of cast and crew and not have a lot of issues.”

By: Winston Cho

Continue Reading at hollywoodreporter.com