Netflix Original Content Spending Rising: Kagan

Netflix's 2021 amortized content spending could reach $13.6 billion, growing to $18.92 billion in 2025, with $5.1 billion allocated to originals, emailed Kagan's Deana Myers Thursday, citing a “rough year for productions and swelling competition in the streaming space.” Subscribers from the U.S. and Canada were about 56.2% of the streaming service’s total subscribers in 2017 vs. 35.4% in June, she said, referencing Netflix’s “localization focus.” The two markets generated 60.8% of revenue in 2017 vs. 44.3% in Q2, reflecting strong pricing in the U.S. and Canada, along with Europe, the Middle East and Africa vs. lower pricing in Latin America and Asia-Pacific, Myers said. Addition of subscription VOD players such as Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+ resulted in “swaths of content being held back as each looks to populate their own services,” said the analyst. Kagan expects distributors to continue to reserve rights for their own SVOD services, and more so from territories where they will launch soon.