Notizie

The top-paid Hollywood executive of the past year is one who actually left the entertainment industry scene more than a year ago.

With his severance package alone worth $69.3 million, more than the total pay packages disclosed for any other industry player, Bob Bakish, the former CEO of Paramount Global, was catapulted to the top of the annual compensation list. The three co-CEOs who succeeded him — aka “The Office of the CEO,” Chris McCarthy, George Cheeks and Brian Robbins — all received packages in the $20 million range. As co-CEOs, they made $6 million each, with the rest of their compensation being pay for their respective existing and continuing executive roles.

Bakish was ousted officially last April as Paramount owner Shari Redstone was in the middle of lengthy talks with David Ellison’s Skydance and RedBird Capital on a deal that would transfer ownership of the historic studio from the Redstone family to the Ellisons.

Netflix executives unveiled a first look at the streamer’s upcoming homepage redesign, which includes an updated interface and improvements to content recommendations. It also introduce new mobile features, such as a video feed and generative AI-powered search in collaboration with OpenAI.

“Thanks to a combination of new technology and the expansion of our entertainment offerings, we think it’s time to take a giant leap forward,” Netflix chief product officer Eunice Kim told reporters on Tuesday. “Our redesigned TV home page is simpler, more intuitive and better represents the breadth of entertainment on Netflix today, and it’s better at the most important thing: helping our members easily find shows, movies, live events and games that they’ll love.”

The new homepage design will move its shortcuts menu for features like Search and My List from the left hand side to the top of the screen to make them...

The Bob Iger-successor search is well underway — again — and while Hollywood has its own parlor game re: the race for Disney’s top job, we’re taking our chips to Antigua.

To some degree, this is all a crapshoot — remember when Tom Staggs was a shoo-in? — so let’s take a minute from parsing the daily industry news cycle for clues about who’s ahead in the succession race and talk to the oddsmakers. The Hollywood Reporter asked BetOnline.ag (the “ag” is for Antigua, where the online sports book is registered — less regulation in paradise) for a decidedly outside Los Angeles perspective on who will next sit in the TV and film industry’s iron throne.

Though gamblers think differently, BetOnline.ag handicapped the race through the usual research.

“The internal candidates are easily accessed and after that it’s really about research on who has created hits...

Exuding confidence amid a volatile economic climate, Netflix leadership unveiled solid Q1 results that were on par with or beat Wall Street estimates.

Leadership also said that co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings was segueing from his executive chairman role to chairman of the board and non-executive director.

Thursday marked the streamer’s first quarterly earnings without an update on the subscriber count. In Q4 the company reported 18.91m paid global adds to 301.6m.Thursday’s letter to shareholders said 700m people watched worldwide, over two-thirds of whom live outside the United States.

Widely regarded as the winner in the so-called streaming wars,...

Exuding confidence amid a volatile economic climate, Netflix leadership unveiled solid Q1 results that were on par with or beat Wall Street estimates.

Leadership also said that co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings was segueing from his executive chairman role to chairman of the board and non-executive director.

Thursday marked the streamer’s first quarterly earnings without an update on the subscriber count. In Q4 the company reported 18.91m paid global adds to 301.6m.Thursday’s letter to shareholders said 700m people watched worldwide, over two-thirds of whom live outside the United States.

Widely regarded as the winner in the so-called streaming wars,...

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saw total compensation of, respectively, to about $61.9 million and $60.3 million in 2024, up sharply from the year before.

In 2023, Sarandos had a package worth $49.8 million while Peters was at $40.1 million.

For last year, Sarandos saw base pay of $3 million, unchanged, but received stock awards valued at $42.7 million, option awards worth $2.25 million and non-equity incentive plan compensation (like a cash bonus) of $12 million, according to a proxy statement filed with the SEC.

Peters base salary of $3 million also included stock awards for $42.7 million, option awards. for $1.95 million and non-equity incentive plan pay of $12 million.

Neither executive received stock awards in 2023.

Proxies list the annual compensation of the top five highest paid executives at a public company.

The numbers hit as the duo were wrapping up an earnings call after Netflix posted strong 2025 first quarter financials. The company has been among the best performing stocks in...

Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos saw his total pay package rise to $61.9 million in 2024, while co-ceo Greg Peters brought in $60.3 million.

The pay package for Sarandos included a base salary of $3 million, unchanged from the prior year, as well as stock awards of $42.7 million, in addition to a $12 million bonus. Last year, his total pay package was $49.8 million, as no stock awards were granted to him in 2023 (or in 2022).

The pay package for Peters also included a base salary of $3 million, up slightly from $2.89 million the prior year, as well as a $12 million bonus and $42.7 million in stock awards. His total pay package was up from $40.1 million in 2023, as he also did not receive stock awards at that time.

The slight difference in salaries came as Sarandos earned slightly more in options awards and had a slightly higher value under “other compensation,” which includes use of the corporate aircrafact.

The stock...

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saw a significant pay bump in 2024, with both executives’ paychecks rising above $60 million.

In 2024, Sarandos’ total compensation was $61.92 million and Peters’ pay for the year totaled to $60.27 million, according to Netflix’s proxy statement filed on Thursday.

Sarandos’ pay check for 2024 rose by 24% from 2023, when the co-ceo’s total compensation was $49.83 million, while Peters’ compensation saw a 50% uptick from 2023, when Peters’ took home $40.12 million.

Likewise, Reed Hastings, who shifts from Netflix’s executive chairman to chairman of the board and a non-executive director as of Thursday, saw a total compensation of $1.75 million in 2024, down considerably from his 2023 pay check, which saw him make $11.29 million as he transitioned from co-ceo to executive chairman.

Spencer Neumann, Netflix’s CFO, brought home $22.9 million in 2024, up from his 2023 pay check of $17 million, which remained flat from his 2022 compensation, which totaled to $17.06 million. Netflix’s chief legal officer,...

Netflix may be doing more programming locally, but it is definitely still thinking globally.

Asked on Thursday’s earnings call about the current worldwide economic uncertainty, which for lay people means President Trump’s tariffs, Netflix co-ceo Greg Peters acknowledged he is “playing close attention, clearly, to the consumer sentiment and where the broader economy is moving.”

Not that he and his fellow co-ceo Ted Sarandos are worried.

“We pay taxes and levies around the world consistent with all sorts of local regulations. And there’s always some of that that has existed, always has,” Sarandos said. “But what we’re seeing today, we’re not changing anything in the forecast.”

Peters said he and Sarandos “take some comfort … that entertainment historically has been pretty resilient in tougher economic times.” And you can pretty much double that for Netflix, he said, which Sarandos called “a tremendous value in absolute terms and certainly in competitive terms.

At the top of Netflix’s quarterly earnings call with analysts, co-chiefs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters downplayed a report that the company was eyeing a $1 trillion market capitalization by 2030 and attempted to reorient Wall Street’s expectations.

“We often have internal meetings and we talk about long term aspirations,” Sarandos told an after-market analyst call, in reference to the April 14 Wall Street Journal story “Netflix Aims to Join the $1 Trillion Club” that arrived days before its first quarter 2025 earnings.

“It’s important to note that this is not the same as forecast. Our operating plans are the same as our external forecasting guidance,” he added in response to a question from an analyst. Sarandos’ comments followed Netflix’s first quarterly earnings report that, without disclosing subscriber numbers, pointed Wall Street toward revenue and operating income as the streaming giant seeks to control the story of its growth potential.

The...

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saw their pay packages rise to more than $60 million each in 2024.

Sarandos’ total compensation for the year was $61.9 million (up 24% from what he made in 2023), while Peters pulled $60.3 million (up 50.2%), according to a proxy statement filed by Netflix Thursday. The release was posted just as the execs were fielding analyst questions about their first-quarter 2025 earnings during a livestreamed interview.

Both Sarandos and Peters were given significant cash bonuses of $12 million for the year. They each earned a base salary of $3 million and received $42.7 million in stock awards. Sarandos was granted $2.3 million in option awards and Peters received $2 million. “Other” compensation for the co-CEOs totaled $2 million for Sarandos and $613,091 for Peters.

The more than $60 million paydays for Sarandos and Peters put them ahead of Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, who made a whopping $52 million in 2024 and is widely known as one of the...

Netflix’s co-founder Reed Hastings will be stepping down from his role as Executive Chairman.

Moving forward, Hastings will be Chairman of the Board as well as a non-executive director. The news, which was made “as part of the natural evolution of our leadership structure and succession planning,” was announced as part of Netflix’s first quarter earnings report for 2025.

Additionally, Tim Haley, who is the longest standing independent director for the company, will not be returning for re-election. This decision was not related to Hasting’s role change.

“For more than 27 years, Tim has been on this journey with us and his counsel and leadership have been a much valued part of our success. We thank Tim for his long service and many contributions to the Netflix Board of Directors,” Netflix wrote in a letter to shareholders.

Hastings co-founded Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997 and served as the streamer...

Reed Hastings, co-founder and longtime former CEO of Netflix, is shifting from executive chairman to chairman of the board.

The move to a non-executive role on the board was described by the company as “part of the natural evolution of our leadership structure and succession planning.”

Hastings, 64, passed the baton to Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters in 2023 and became executive chairman of the board. The executive has pursued business interests apart from Netflix and has also become an active philanthropist, recently giving $50 million to his alma mater, Bowdoin College.

Along with the Hastings move, which was announced in the company’s quarterly letter to shareholders, the company said longtime board member Tim Haley does not plan to continue in the position.

The letter referred to Haley as “our longest standing independent director,” with a tenure dating back to the company’s inception as a DVD-by-mail operation.

“For more than 27 years,...

You are reading an exclusive WrapPRO article for free. Want to level up your entertainment career? Go here for more information.

Netflix shares jumped as much as 4% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company beat Wall Street expectations for its first quarter of 2025.

Revenue grew 12.5% to $10.5 billion, driven by higher pricing and higher-than-forecasted subscription and ad revenue, the latter of which the company said is still “very small.” The company remains on track to reach “sufficient scale” with its ad-supported offering in 2025.

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $2.89 billion, compared to $2.33 billion a year ago.

Earnings per share: $6.61 per share, compared to $5.69 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $10.54 billion, up 12.5% year over year, in line with analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Operating income: $3.35 billion, up 31.7% year over year, compared to $2.63 billion a year ago.

The latest earnings disclosure marks Netflix’s first...

In its first quarterly earnings report without disclosing subscriber numbers, Netflix pointed Wall Street toward revenue and operating income as the streaming giant seeks to control the story of its growth potential.

Netflix reported $10.5 billion in revenue, operating income of $3.3 billion, and a margin of 31.7 percent. All up substantially from a year ago.

Netflix also said that Reed Hastings, its founder and executive chairman, would give up that role to become chairman and non-executive director of the company. Hastings moved from co-ceo to executive chairman two years ago.

The company beat Wall Street expectations handily, continuing to demonstrate its strength in the marketplace.

The company also raised prices in many markets (including the U.S.) earlier this year, a move that also included the first hike to its ad-supported plan. The hikes likely bolstered the company’s margins, given its low churn.

Netflix said that in Q2 it expects revenue to grow by 15 percent,...

With worries about the impact of a global tariffs war, recession fears and stock market volatility, where should media and entertainment investors put their money in such tumultuous times?

Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne recommends Netflix shares ahead of the streaming giant’s first-quarter earnings report after the stock market close on April 17.

“A more defensive lens to our media & entertainment coverage leaves us incrementally bullish on Netflix,” he wrote in a recent report. “We expect Netflix to demonstrate relative resilience in a weaker global macro. Momentum in its core subscription business combined with recent U.S. dollar weakness should de-risk ’25 estimates – even in a softer ad market.” Reiterating his “overweight” rating on the stock, he designated Netflix his new top pick in the sector, noting that he and his team “view the recent

pullback [in the stock] as a buying opportunity, with over 30 percent upside to our $1,150 price target.”

After its recent pullback,...

When Netflix games chief Alain Tascan sat in front of a room full of reporters at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 19, he spoke more openly about the streamer’s gaming strategy than any exec ever has since the Big Red N signaled it was getting into the biz in 2021.

Tascan’s boldest statement during the two-hour presentation: “We have to match the overall mission of Netflix — otherwise we’re just a distraction.”

The exec, who joined Netflix in July 2024 with 30 years of industry experience at “Fortnite” maker Epic Games, EA and Ubisoft, was acknowledging the elephant in the room. The question looming over Netflix’s foray into games has been whether the company sees it as a category that, over the long run, will be on par with TV and film in driving revenue and reducing churn.

Netflix’s top execs have insisted that’s the aim.

“No late fees.”

When Netflix launched as a DVD rental service in 1998, that was its most effective pitch to potential customers — an unmistakable reference to the thing that people hated the most about Blockbuster. With more than 9,000 locations, Blockbuster was the biggest video rental chain in the world, but it was alienating members because its profits came from charging hefty fines for movies that weren’t returned on time.

“It was an obvious sore spot,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder, says. “People loved renting movies and watching them at home, but the late fee became the symbol of everything painful about that model. So we decided to create something different.”

Netflix didn’t just do away with late fees by allowing customers to keep movies for as long as they wanted. It offered subscribers unlimited rentals for a monthly flat fee. As a bonus, it delivered DVDs directly to customers’ homes,...

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman is calling on the court to withdraw a new sentencing hearing for Lyle and Erik Menendez, concluding that the siblings “do not meet the standards for rehabilitation.”

“They have not exhibited the full insights and accepted complete responsibility for their actions,’ Hochman said at a press conference this morning.

The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents.

The hearing is scheduled for March 20 and 21. Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascon, supported resentencing, including that they be made eligible for parole.

During the press conference, Hochman ran through the circumstances of the Aug. 20, 1989 grisly murders of their parents, Jose and and Kitty Menendez, and highlighting the shifting nature of the siblings’ alibi and later defense. Hochman said that Lyle and Erik Menendez had failed to acknowledge more than two dozen “lies” about the murders, including...

The Oscars red carpet is not just a make-or-break moment for Hollywood’s biggest stars – it’s also a prime opportunity to shine for the powerful executives and producers who finance and shepherd the year’s best movies.

C-suite players, indie powerhouses and the ranks in between have suited up for the 2025 Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien. Netflix has the most nominations of any studio at 16 for feature films, so expect a robust presence from the streamer, including co-ceo’s Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, chief content officer Bela Bajaria and the company’s new film chairman Dan Lin.

An exciting new voice in independent film marking his carpet debut as CEO of Mubi is Efe Cakarel, whose commitment to “The Substance” propelled the body horror film to five Oscar nominations – including a best actress nod for Demi Moore and a best director nom for Coralie Fargeat.

Donna Langley,...

Although the “streaming wars” may hang around in name, Netflix continues to dominate the streaming battlefield, and has been the winner for several quarters in both subscriber numbers and revenue per user.

With the latest round of quarterly earnings reports done, now is the time to take inventory of the streaming pecking order because Netflix is about to change how the game is scored. Starting next quarter, Netflix will no longer disclose its subscriber and average revenue-per-paid-member figures on a quarterly basis, though it will continue to break out total revenue by region and announce major subscriber milestones as it crosses them.

In the latest round of results, the streaming king blew its competitors out of the water after adding a record 18.9 million subscribers, bringing its total to 301.63 million globally.

Disney is a distant second with a combined 203.8 million subscribers across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. The company added 1.6 million Hulu...

It's going to be one season and done for the Australian neo-Western series Territory on Netflix. While the show may have been envisioned as a new Yellowstone, it will not be reaching the same levels of success.

C21 Media has reported that Territory has been canceled at Netflix after one season. Reportedly, the plan was to continue with a second season, which makes sense, given how the freshman season concluded with a cliffhanger ending. The cast and crew were informed weeks ago that Territory wouldn't be getting a second season, and Netflix has now confirmed the news after the news started hitting the press.

RelatedThis Yellowstone Scene Left Kevin Costner Legitimately Disturbed (& Made Him Drop an F-Bomb)

One of the most iconic scenes in Yellowstone includes a genuine reaction from Kevin Costner.

“We are incredibly thankful to have had the chance to work with the wonderful cast and production team...

A month before a repeatedly rescheduled resentencing hearing for the Menendez brothers, the Los Angeles County District Attorney today called out the siblings for “a continuum of lies and deceit and fabricating stories.”

In a sometimes vivid and sometimes dense press conference in downtown LA, Nathan Hochman revealed his office is opposing efforts by the siblings to have their life sentences for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents challenged and given new trials. “We conclude in our informal response that the court should deny the current habeas corpus petition,” the Da said Friday. “We do not believe they qualify to get a new trial,” he went on to say, listing off the courts that have previously rejected the Menendez’ appeals since they were found guilty of first degree murder almost 30 years ago.

He also released a video outlining his office’s take on the case. Watch it below.

As a...

The Big Red N is flexing its power. Netflix shares zoomed to new all-time highs Wednesday, to nearly $1,000 per share, after the streaming giant posted strong Q4 subscriber additions and announced a series of new price hikes.

Netflix stock opened at $997.66/share Wednesday, up 15%, giving the company a market capitalization of more than $420 billion. [Update: Shares ended the day up 9.7%, to $953.99 — an all-time high closing price — yielding a market cap of $407 billion.]

After market close Tuesday, Netflix reported 18.9 million net new global subscribers — around double analyst expectations — to reach 301.6 million. It also announced fee hikes in the U.S. and other key markets, including on its ad-supported entry-level tier, demonstrating its pricing power.

Wall Street analysts marveled at Netflix’s quarterly report — the final one for which it will report subscriber numbers — and many raised their price targets on the stock. In announcing the Q4 earnings, Netflix raised its 2025 outlook for revenue to be between $43.5 billion and $44.5 billion (up $500 million from its prior forecast) and for operating margin...

Netflix executives warned several times that a price increase could be on the way soon over the course of 2024.

Throughout 2024, streaming customers watched with horror as service after service announced new price increases. All kept one eye fixed on Netflix, which held off on price hikes throughout 2024. That reprieve has ended, however; when Netflix announced its fourth quarter 2024 earnings on Tuesday, it also dropped the news that it was raising subscription prices on all three of its available plans in the United States. As The Streamable predicted a few weeks ago, Netflix is now the first streamer in 2025 to announce its rates are going up.

Key Details: Each Netflix plan is rising in price between $1 to $2.50 per month. Company executives say the streamer’s 2025 content slate is more than ample justification for the increase. Netflix has added live NFL games and weekly WWE wrestling, and more recently, Sign Up $7.99+ / month netflix.

Netflix said it added a record 18.91m paid global subscribers in the fourth quarter as its recent foray into live sports and the debut of Squid Games 2 helped raise the total to 301.6m.

As previously announced, staring in April’s earnings call the platform will no longer provide quarterly subscriber updates as it focuses on financials, although it will offer milestone updates. That said, co-ceo Ted Sarandos said they will release a biannual engagement report with Q2 and Q4 earnings. Shares climbed by more than 14% in after hours trading

Revenue crossed $10bn for the first time in the company’s history on $10.2bn,...

Netflix just had one of its best quarters ever, adding nearly 19 million subscribers to surpass 300 million subscribers for the first time. So of course, it’s raising prices.

The ad-tier for Netflix will now cost $7.99/month, up $1 a month from its prior price, and the most expensive premium tier is up an extra $2 a month to $24.99/mo. The standard tier is also up, as is the cost to add an additional member to your plan to watch remotely, but the cost to do so via the ad-plan remains the same.

Standard with Ads: $6.99 → $7.99

Standard: $15.49 → $17.99

Premium: $22.99 → $24.99

Extra Member: $7.99 → $8.99

Extra Member with Ads: $6.99 (no change)

“As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix,” the company said in its quarterly letter to investors. “To that end, we...

Netflix is raising its prices once more.

The streaming giant is upping the cost of its standard ad-supported tier to $7.99 a month in the U.S., up from $6.99, and the cost of the premium tier is increasing by $2, to $24.99. The standard plan is increasing to $17.99 from $15.49.

The cost of adding an extra member on a plan without ads is increasing to $8.99 from $7.99.

Price changes are taking place across most plans in the U.S., Canada, Portugal and Argentina. They kick in Tuesday for new customers and start with the next billing cycle for existing customers.

This is the first price hike on the ad-supported tier. The last major U.S. price hike took place in October 2023, when Netflix raised the price of the standard plan to $11.99 from $9.99 to per month in the U.S. and brought the Premium price to $22.99 from $19.99.

Additionally, Netflix is expanding its offering of the Extra Member With Ads plan,...

Netflix is increasing subscription prices in the U.S. and other markets — including the first hike on its ad-supported plan.

The streamer revealed the price increases along with its Q4 2024 earnings results Tuesday, when it announced its biggest-ever quarterly increase in subscribers with a gain of 18.9 million for the period.

Under the new pricing in the U.S., Netflix’s Standard plan without ads will rise by $2.50 — going from $15.49 to $17.99 per month. It’s been three years since Netflix upped the pricing of the Standard tier, which provides two simultaneous HD streams.

In addition, Netflix’s ad-supported tier will cost $7.99 per month, up $1 from $6.99. The price of the Premium tier, with four simultaneous streams, will be $24.99 per month, up $2. The cost of adding an Extra Member to a primary account is increasing from $7.99 to $8.99 per month.

“As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members,...

The NFL and a record-shattering boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul helped Netflix add 19 million subscribers in its fourth quarter — a new record for the company, surpassing even Covid-era highs — as the streaming giant further cemented its place as the leader in the space.

Netflix now has 302 million subscribers, though going forward Wall Street will have to make its own guesses around sub growth, with the company set to stop providing quarterly updates on subscriber numbers in order to put its focus on its revenue and profit growth. It will continue to report subscriber numbers when certain milestones are hit.

To that end, Netflix reported $10.2 billion in revenue, operating income of $2.3 billion, and a margin of 22.2 percent.

The company says that in Q1 2025 it anticipates revenue of $10.4 billion, and operating income of $2.9 billion. The company also raised its 2025 revenue guidance by $500 million to $43.5 billion-$44.5 billion.

Those numbers are sure to grow,...

Netflix revealed it has now reached 301.63 million subscribers globally when it reported its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings Tuesday.

Analysts estimated the streamer would add 9.18 million paid subs during the October-December time period versus the 13.12 million it tacked on in the comparable Q4 2023. Netflix smashed those expectations by adding a record-breaking 18.91 million subscribers, a year-over-year increase of 15.9%.

For comparison, Netflix added 5.1 million paid subscribers in Q3 of 2024 to reach 282.72 million globally. That marked year-over-year growth of more than 14%.

“Our Q4 slate outperformed even our high expectations: ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 is on track to become one of our most watched original series seasons, ‘Carry-On’ joined our all-time Top 10 films list, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight became the most-streamed sporting event ever and on Christmas Day we delivered the two most-streamed NFL games in history,” Netflix said in a letter to shareholders.

Broken down by region, Netflix says it added 4.82 million subscribers in the U.

The stage is set for global streaming giant Netflix to disclose its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 results, including what is expected to be its final period of quarterly subscriber disclosures. After all, the company said last year that it is more focused on other performance metrics.

Led by co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters and executive chairman Reed Hastings, Netflix had ended September with 282.72 million global subscribers, with Wall Street experts estimating that it finished the year above the 290 million mark, helped by season 2 of Korean hit drama Squid Game and those Christmas NFL games.

Despite a recent drop in Netflix shares, which has left it down 5 percent so far this year as of Thursday’s stock market close, after a strong run-up last year, various experts continue to recommend the stock, some even as a top pick for 2025, and several analysts have further raised their price targets heading into the latest earnings report.

“This is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory,” MGM founder Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) says in Mank. “What he bought still belongs to the man who sold it. That’s the real magic of the movies, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Facing a potential payout in the tens of millions at the very least from an invasion of privacy lawsuit over some sloppy editing on a 2022 Blumhouse documentary about a sociopathic fertility doctor, Netflix has emerged having to write a relatively small check thanks to a Midwest jury.

Having already seen one plaintiff removed from the Indianapolis Indiana based Our Father case because of podcast oversharing, remaining plaintiffs Lori Kennard and Sarah Bowling received very different verdicts late on December 5.

“Judgment is entered against Plaintiff Sarah Bowling and in favor of Defendants on Count One invasion of privacy by public disclosure of private facts of Plaintiff Sarah Bowling’s Complaint,” declares an order Friday from US District Court Judge Tanya Walton Platt. Judgment is entered against Defendants and in favor of Plaintiff Lori Kennard in the amount of $385,000.00. Judgment is entered accordingly, and this action is Terminated.”

Originally seeking $1 for every...

Is Netflix mining Amazon's self-published section for its movie ideas or do a lot of people just have extreme climate anxiety right now? That's the question a new lawsuit regarding the 2021 Adam McKay film Don't Look Up will attempt to answer. Per Variety, the suit comes from Darren Hunter, a self-published author from Harleysville,...

With a lot of anticipation leading up to the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight on Netflix, fans were not too happy with ongoing screen buffering and freezing issues during the live event.

While the 27-year-old former YouTube star ultimately defeated the 58-year-old former undisputed heavyweight, some fans were honestly lucky if they even caught the showdown due to technical issues. Throughout Friday night, including during the earlier fights, some fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to share their complaints, including Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

“Im in the classic torture chamber where I cant tell if my internet keeps going out or whether #netflix is just constantly buffering and unwatchable for everybody,” he wrote on X earlier in the night before later adding, “So the reports are in. #netflix wasnt ready for this. This is unwatchable.”

Many others seemed just as annoyed, with another person writing, “Netflix telling me...

YouTube is dominating the streaming space, capturing more of viewers’ time than any other service. Nielsen classes it as a streaming service, pitting it against offerings like Netflix, Disney+, and Max—and, over the summer, it became the first streaming service to account for 10% of watch time on all televisions. That means one in 10 times someone turns on their TV, they bypass traditional networks and other streaming services, and flip to YouTube.

Just like Nielsen, YouTube leans heavily on watch hours as a metric of success. It doesn’t disclose how many individual people watch YouTube content on TVs–and, with paid servies like YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV, the platform lumps revenue into one dollar figure, without giving specifics.

Now, competitors like Netflix and Roku are also moving away from disclosing exact subscriber counts. Netflix announced this past April that it will no longer report user numbers...

(Editor’s note: Variety’s interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEOs Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino occurred on Oct. 16, prior to PlayStation’s Tuesday announcement it is shutting down Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi. Sie was unable to make studio business CEO Hulst available for additional comment or to clarify his previous comments about layoffs in this story ahead of publication.)

This spring, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida turned heads when he picked two PlayStation vets to lead Sony Interactive Entertainment: Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino.

After all, having co-CEOs is a potential recipe for friction. In their first interview since assuming their new roles in June, Nishino and Hulst speak to Variety about how their partnership works. They argue that the scale of the company behind the “God of War” and “Spider-Man” franchises has grown to require two operations that each need specialized leadership: a platform business run by Nishino...

Netflix has named Nicolle Pangis as its new VP of advertising, TheWrap has learned.

Pangis, who most recently served as CEO for Ampersand, is set to oversee Netflix’s U.S. and Canada advertising sales and account management team, leveraging her industry relationships and operation background to lead Netflix’s revenue strategy. She will report to Netflix’s president of advertising, Amy Reinhard.

“I am so excited Nicolle is joining Netflix,” Reinhard said in a Tuesday statement. “She has a great reputation within our industry, both for the depth of her relationships with clients and partners, and her data-driven approach to streaming advertising. Together, we’ll continue to build and scale a great ads business for our clients and Netflix.”

After becoming CEO of Ampersand in 2018, Pangis led the company to become one of the most substantial advanced television players in the industry as they brought in 75% of the addressable...

Nicolle Pangis, a former CEO of the cable-ad-sales entity Ampersand, will join Netflix as its new vice president of advertising, a role that has not been easy to navigate at the streaming giant as it seeks to make dollars from Madison Avenue a bigger part of its overall business plan.

Pangis enjoys “a great reputation within our industry, both for the depth of her relationships with clients and partners, and her data-driven approach to streaming advertising,” said Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, in a statement. “Together, we’ll continue to build and scale a great ads business for our clients and Netflix.”

Netflix joined the battle for video advertising about two years ago, but media buyers say the streamer has not been as successful in the fray as rival Amazon. Both companies produce some of the most-buzzed-about programs and series available, but Amazon has proven more willing to push its ad-supported tier,...

Exclusive: In a significant changing of the guard in Netflix’s senior executive ranks, Chief Communications Officer Rachel Whetstone and Global Public Policy VP Dean Garfield are leaving the company.

The news has just been shared with staffers in an internal memo. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos intends to conduct a search for a Chief Global Affairs Officer, whose portfolio will include both policy and communications. No one as yet has been identified for the role, and external candidates will be in the mix, a person familiar with the process tells Deadline. Whetstone declined the opportunity to be considered for the combo post, while Garfield has spent his career in the policy realm but has not worked in communications.

“For nearly six years, Rachel and Dean have been not just leaders, but true partners,” Sarandos said in a statement, which also referenced Co-CEO Greg Peters. “Their counsel, dedication, and passion have shaped...

Netflix has responded to backlash over it removing 19 films by or about Palestinians from the streaming platform in mid-October.

In a statement, the streamer said the Palestinian Stories collection with 32 films was launched in Oct. 2021 as part of a three-year licensing deal. “Those licenses have now expired. As always we continue to invest in a wide variety of quality films and TV shows to meet our members’ needs, and celebrate voices from around the world,” Netflix said on Friday.

The decision to not renew the Palestinian stories slate as part of a content licensing deal led a coalition of human rights groups led by Freedom Forward to write an open letter to Netflix’s executive team to explain why it removed 19 films by or about Palestinians.

“We urge you to explain your decision and to reinstate every film by or about Palestinians that Netflix deleted last week. We are deeply...

The video game industry is having a record-bad year, with more than 10,000 layoffs in the first half of 2024 alone. Now, Netflix is adding to those job cuts: After just two years of operation, it has closed its Aaa game development studio in Southern California.

Internally referred to as “Team Blue,” the studio opened in 2022, and was supposed to be the center of Netflix’s bigger gaming ambitions. The streamer first got into gaming in 2021, and was at first largely focused on acquiring outside studios and producing lower-lift mobile games. It acquired indie developers Night School, Boss Fight, Next Games, and Spry Fox, and then opened Team Blue and another studio in Helsinki.

Game File, which was first to report the closure, says Team Blue was aiming to make big-budget, multi-device, Aaa games. To do that, it tapped several big hires with lots of industry experience: Overwatch producer Chacko Sonny, former Halo creative lead Joseph Staten,...

Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos said the top job at Disney is not something he’s thinking about at all as the Mouse House seeks a successor to Bob Iger.

It’s “not even on my mind, really,” Sarandos told the WSJ Tech Live conference Tuesday when asked if he would take a call from James Gorman, incoming chair of the Disney board and head of the committee on succession planning.

Sarandos has been with Netflix for about 25 years.

“Honestly, I think what we are doing is so exciting,” he said during a Q&a.

Netflix is on the top of the streaming pile but still has lots of room to grow, he noted, recalling early days when the streamer rented physical DVDs by mail and he was in charge of buying them at Best Buy and Walmart. Founder Reed Hastings knew from early on the internet would be the future. Employees “had a party when we hit a million subscribers.” Now the platform is approaching 300 million worldwide. “At 10% of consumer engagement, it feels so small … So what’s it feel like to get to 15, to 20?”

The Disney succession has consumer Hollywood and Wall Street, with an internal candidate being the most likely but no formal announcement coming until early in 2026. Iger’s contract runs through the end of that year.

Sarandos is co-ceo with Greg Peters, after having been Hastings’ COO for some years; he said the setup works great with Peters in charge of all things tech and himself overseeing content. “The co-ceo model works uniquely well,” he said. “We’ve got two very distinctly different things that we have to accomplish. One is in the technology of the delivery and the Ui and all because all the product enhancements that has to happen, and then this kind of creative culture that has to pick and create the programming for the world. And the creative culture that technology in the tech cultures are different.”

“We need to build a company where our tech employees feel like they work at the greatest tech company in the world, and our creative employees need to feel like they work at the best entertainment company in the world, and they both have to be true,” he added.

He said the two execs also get along really well. “I don’t know that it works everywhere,” he said. “If your business culture is more politically charged than ours is [it] might not go so well. You know, there were three co-emperors in the Roman Empire. None of them went very well.”

Sarandos today delved a bit into the company’s new business lines. In live sports, the streamer has two NFL games coming on Christmas Day, and a deal with WWE for weekly shows. Asked about this thinking, he said, “For me, the reason, the difference, between the event and the full season in general is really the economics. I think the leagues do a phenomenal job of building fandom. And for that, they get to keep all the money, and distribution’s a pretty low margin business in league sports. You know, for full-season league sports.”

“I do think if we can add some value back to them, which I think we do uniquely, we can make that work.”

He also said that there could be many more Netflix immersive experiential installations like the ones under construction in Dallas and King Of Prussia, Pa — up to 50 to 60 globally. Temporary live experiences like a Stranger Things drive-in during Covid, or the Bridgerton Ball or Squid Game challenge are extremely popular but “you spend so much time and energy and money on the setting them up and breaking them down. This is a way to bring some scale to this thing that consumers really love.”

Asked which series he wishes Netflix had made, he said, “I wish we had every show that was successful somewhere else,” citing The Bear on FX (“I wish that was one of ours”) and Ted Lasso (“super impressive for Apple. People really loved it. It was a kind of a show that spoke to the time really well. People were looking for something light and fun and it was just that”).

Despite continued optimism among top management about the potential of video games, Netflix is shuttering its Aaa game studio in Southern California.

The move, first reported by GameFile, was confirmed to Deadline by a source familiar with the closure.

Aaa is one of a handful of small studios put under the corporate umbrella by Netflix over the past couple of years. It had yet to produce any titles by the time it was shuttered.

A Netflix rep declined to comment when contacted by Deadline.

The company has mounted a major effort to position games alongside series and films as a draw for subscribers. Yet a genuine video game blockbuster can get expensive to make and market and Netflix overall has been actively looking to streamline and lower its expenses across many business verticals. On last week’s third-quarter earnings call, the topic of games arose multiple times but execs called...

Christmas is coming early for NFL fans, with Netflix dropping the first teaser for its two live football games set for Dec. 25.

Set to “Feliz Navidad,” the 30-sec. spot opens with Travis Kelce yelling, “What a day to play football baby!” as crowds cheer in the background. That’s followed by a montage of shouting by various players, the teams facing off, Santa playing the drums and outright celebration from both fans and athletes alike.

The festivities kick off Christmas Day with reigning Super Bowl champs the Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1 p.m. Et, followed by the Baltimore Ravens taking on the Houston Texans at 4:30 p.m. Et.

During the Financial Times’ Business of Entertainment Summit last month, Netflix co-ceo Greg Peters teased that the streamer would “Netflix-ify” the pair of games.

“We’ll plan to have a little bit of stuff around...

YouTube has become Netflix‘s biggest rival in the world of streaming. The latter company’s Co-CEO thinks that his platform’s superlative stories are still a difference maker, but is his view outdated?

Ted Sarandos was asked about YouTube during Netflix’s Q3 2024 earnings call. Those two platforms account for half of all streaming traffic, but Sarandos still believes his SVOD service has a competitive edge over YouTube.

“Netflix is the best place for premium stories because we’re the home to the best storytellers,” Sarandos said. “When I look at YouTube specifically, I’d say look, we compete directly with YouTube for people’s time, for the time they spend on that TV screen. But we have very different strengths.”

That answer sounds similar to the one Sarandos’ fellow Co-CEO, Greg Peters, gave in response to a question about YouTube during the Q2 2024 Netflix earnings call. At the time,...

Netflix is continuing to flex as hard as ever as the streamer giant records yet another tremendous run of its unstoppable growth. Amidst the latest turn of events, it seems to be aiming at yet another incredible win-win situation as the streamer’s stock price recorded an even higher number on Friday. This has been somewhat boosted by breakout shows, but not entirely.

That said, this event can’t entirely be credited to Millie Bobby Brown’s all-time best and confoundingly successful thriller Stranger Things series. As it turns out, the real, hard reason behind this spurge of growth is something that will end up hurting all subscribers of the subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service: An incoming price hike. Yikes.

Netflix Stock Price Rise to be Followed by a Price Hike for Subscribers? Credits: Tm/®Netflix Inc/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons.

According to exclusive reports, the streamer’s Nflx stock...

Engagement is up on Netflix year-over-year, and that could be a factor in keeping the streamer’s prices stable.

Netflix once again captured the attention of the media on Thursday. It wasn’t the premiere of a new series or an acquisition of new sports rights that prompted Hollywood news outlets to fire up their typewriters, it was another earnings report that showed Netflix had once again put the competition to shame. Netflix added another 5 million customers in the third quarter of 2024, and while many analysts expected the announcement of a price increase to accompany the report, no such news was handed down. One reason for this lack of action may be the consistently increasing levels of engagement on Netflix, which may be driven by the streamer’s efforts to crack down on password-sharing.

Key Details: Account-owning households saw engagement with Netflix increase year-over-year during the first three quarters of...

Netflix’s third-quarter results are in, and so are the first Wall Street verdicts on what they mean for the streaming giant and its stock. Most experts had headed into the earnings report with a bullish mindset despite some warnings that the company’s increased market value may require some patience before a further stock run-up.

Led by co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters and executive chairman Reed Hastings, Netflix ended September with 282.72 million global subscribers. As forecast, quarterly net additions of 5.07 million came in below the year-ago period when it had added 8.76 million.

The original content launched on the streamer in the third quarter included Emily in Paris season 4, The Perfect Couple, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, and the fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy.

And for the current fourth quarter, management late Thursday touted: “We’re excited to finish the...