I watched two episodes of Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Friday evening. When I sat down to my Roku to watch the next episode two nights later, the main screen on the Netflix app knew where I was headed:
- One click down to Kimmy Schmidt, which was listed first under "Continue Watching."
- One click into the Kimmy Schmidt episode screen.
- That is all. No more clicks.
The next episode just started playing. I didn't have to click a thing. If I had wanted to re-watch part of the previous episode or skip ahead to a later episode, that would be easy enough to do — but Netflix intuited that I wanted to watch the next one, and Netflix was right.
"The only inhibitor in our growth is how great is our service," said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in Monday afternoon's earnings interview. "Can we make it so there's never buffering? So it always starts up instantly? So the recommendations are incredible an the content is exciting? If we can do all that, we'll continue to grow globally even though HBO, DISH and the others are also growing. That doesn't take away from us."
The question was whether the proliferation of new streaming services changes Netflix's competitive position. Hastings answered, essentially, that Netflix is focused on growing its U.S. and global subscriber business by executing the basic fundamentals of making sure the service works.
If Hastings' answer sounds like executive-speak to you, then go to another service's app on your streaming device and count how many clicks it takes you to get to the next episode of a show you've been watching. I've never watched a single movie or a single children's show on Hulu, yet I have to click past "Movies," "Trailers" and "Kids" to get to the "Queue" menu of shows I'm currently watching.
Like Apple in the Steve Jobs era, Netflix has an intuitive interface that just works. While the interface is not the overriding reason why Netflix has 47 million U.S. subscribers or why it added 2.2 million subscribers in the first three months of this year — the volume and quality of original content is the overriding reason for that — it is emblematic of a company focusing on execution instead of distractions.
Is Netflix interested in broadcasting live sports?
"There's no interest in live sports currently," Netfix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said.
Can you talk about your mergers-and-acquisitions strategy? Are you looking at Paramount or Starz?
"In 15 years we've been public and 20 years in existence, we've done no M&A," Hastings said. "That probably speaks for itself."
Hastings, Sarandos and CFO David Wells focused on the basics in part because Netflix stock was getting pummeled in after-hours trading at the same time the interview was streaming live on YouTube. (I'm not here to tell you whether to buy Netflix stock — this ain't that kind of website — but the slide in share price was largely attributable to Netflix's forecast of future growth failing to meet the market's expectations.)
From a viewer's perspective, though, Netflix is as good as a streaming service gets in 2016.
New seasons of House of Cards and Daredevil — two of the service's flagship shows — have earned solid reviews and been slathered with media attention. Rom-com series Love had a promising debut in February and is in production now on a second season. The Characters in March was an innovative, interesting comedy series with eight comics making their own standalone episodes. Orange Is the New Black will be back in June.
Seven of the ten most in-demand shows on all streaming services last week were on Netflix, according to Parrot Analytics, including Netflix's critically panned Fuller House as the second-ranked show of the week nearly two months after it premiered in late February. Netflix doesn't release viewing data for its originals, but every indication is that people are watching in numbers comparable to the top cable networks.
Netflix is at top film festivals buying up content like Sundance darling The Fundamentals of Caring starring Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez (premiering in June) and is developing its own slate of films like Christopher Guest's Mascots set for later this season. Chelsea Handler's new talk show Chelsea starts in May. Netflix has original scripted series, films, documentaries, docu-series, stand-up comedy and children's shows starting every week.
Stock traders may not have been nuts about the Netflix earnings report, but consumers don't have a thing to worry about.
Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider. He is also a contributing writer for Biographile and The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.
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