The news is still hanging onto several things that are playing. This is not a bad thing; this is the setting as news moves forward and remains news. Even when we consider the events in Saudi Arabia, where we get the Guardian quote: “Saudi Arabia has rushed to boost oil production under pressure from US President Donald Trump – only to discover that global markets might not need it yet, according to some financial experts“, we see that certain players do not tend to use a presidency as a tool, so the quote might be correct, but there is a game in play, played between Donald Trump and Wall Street. So far it works, because everyone thinks he is an idiot, that is the popular story, but I am not convinced. This is direct and it is with purpose, so something else will rear its ugly head soon enough. Yet this is not about that. You see, when it comes down to chivalry versus rivalry, we see that chivalry is dead, it has no place anymore. Even as Saudi Arabia wanted to come to the aid of America, we see the news that “the Saudis are struggling to sell as much extra oil as they’d hoped and are privately fretting that they may have opened the taps too quickly, according to people briefed by Riyadh in the last few days“, it this merely an American ply to keep the reserves maxed so the President can haul away a cheap political victory as heating prices remain low this coming winter?
Even as the Independent offers: “Societe Generale’s Mr Wittner, said: “We have hardly started to see a reduction in flows from Iran. Though there’s a lot of crude coming out from Saudi Arabia now, spare capacity is really going to be the big issue going forward. And spare capacity is getting very tight very quickly.”“, I am not convinced that this is about Iran; this is about keeping prices down over the next 8 months. The flow fall of Iran is merely a nice bonus. Even as we start on oil, we now see that a similar fight is going on in entertainment, the actual issue. In the light of Netflix against the world, we see a few changes that are now more adamant and also impacting us all. The Guardian starts the event with: “Below-par subscriber numbers last week were bad news for a service that must keep growing to survive. How will it respond?“, yet the story is not there. You see, from my point of view, 100 million subscribers is nothing to sneer at and the saturation makes new members a much harder setting, it is by no means the setting for a down draft. Even last week, when I wrote ‘Pushers of media value‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/07/17/pushers-of-media-value/), I was confronted with several responses, that I was crazy, that there was no saturation. Yet now we see in the Guardian: ““Netflix’s big challenge is maintaining growth worldwide while its customer base saturates in core western markets,” says Richard Broughton, analyst at Ampere. “Netflix is having to work ever harder to gain new subscribers.” The low-cost nature of the streaming service – a premium subscription costs £9.99 per month in the UK and $13.99 in the US – means that it needs inexorable growth to pay for its content“, so apparently with ‘while its customer base saturates in core western markets‘ my setting shows to be the correct one. Now that we have that out of the way, and for now I ignore the one market that Netflix ignored in the UK and a few other places, worth close to an additional £15 million a month, we see that Netflix is for now all about the “it costs a lot of money to attract a Hollywood star such as Will Smith to a sci-fi film like Bright – and in recent years it has been raised by about $1bn annually. Netflix is stuck in a costly and precarious cycle“, Netflix has chosen a short term solution that will go nowhere in about 3 years.
It is the setting of the man who makes a deal with the devil, to bring 10 souls a day to stay out of hell, and accepting a 20% annual increase, as a sales director he accepts it, because he knows it can be done, yet souls are not revenue and in 3 years he needs to have accumulated 12,230 souls. After 6 years it is up to 34,200. A setting that started with 10 souls has now been increased to 25 a day, no option to fail. Greed is like that, it has no problems, because in the end the house wins or collapses, until the second happens, all serving the house are in a spiral of servitude with sliding morals. You see, the first 10 years seems fine, but after 10 years the daily soul quota has gone up to 51 a day and after that it gets interesting with decennial party where 319 souls a day will be required. That is the game everyone forgets about, steps absent of long term vision with in the end the executive having to hand over his soul, no matter what. The house of greed always wins!
Netflix is now in that downward spiral, not when it comes to members, but the setting to gain followers, set against the tides of resources, that is the war they cannot win, not until they resist temptation and take it to a very different level. They have the option and the means, but will they be willing to take the plunge?
Rivalry
This is the setting of greed, rivalry is everything, because now that Netflix has shown the value, now that the others are seeing that the setting is not merely revenue, it is massive profit for the one holding the data, that is the setting that we now get with: “Netflix was able to get hold of the rights to TV shows and films on the cheap. Rights owners and future rivals had not identified the global potential of subscription video-on-demand rights, and Netflix prospered. The value of those rights has now spiralled, which has pushed up Netflix’s content budgets and fuelled its drive to produce its own content“, there are solutions and the nice part is that both the UK and Australia have a leg up in all this, they have an advantage if the proper person gets the parties working together, but can they realise the potential that is still out in the open for the next person to grab?
I am certain that the issue is there, but sees it? I am not giving away the plot here, because there are three aces up for grabs, the question is whoever holds the fourth ace is in the running to get the clean sweep. Yet, the second party is Netflix, are they up to the task to get set up for the chop? That is the game, it is not merely winner takes all, failure is at this stage slightly too dangerous. It took me a day to realise the opportunity, because even as an IP master, I had to wonder how far it could be stretched, yet it can in the Commonwealth and as far as I can tell in the US as well, so this gives Netflix the option, however, to get this up and running, they need to truly focus. It cannot be half baked!
The next pitfall
With “Youth-targeted shows such as Stranger Things and Thirteen Reasons Why have been major hits, but Netflix faces some of the same pressures caused by the rapid generational shift in viewing habits“, that is true, but in that same setting, we see that in some cases everything old is new again, so there is space and place to grow and to do that, a first step is needed, but are the shareholders willing to play the longer game, a game that could potentially grow value by 400%? The long game is not something that shareholders are good at. They believe in short term gratification (not just on 42nd street mind you), so the game is optionally out of the hands of the Americans, giving the UK and Australia now a partial advantage over America on the entertainment business and there is plenty of famous entertainers here, beyond the Australian King and Queen (Geoffrey Rush & Cate Blanchett). This gets us to the final part in all this. The quote “Netflix’s long-term strategy is that it has to increase its revenue from subscribers; it needs to move into those content genres to replicate the journey of traditional pay-TV companies,” says Mulligan. “You need a full suite of content if you want to be a real substitute, not just an additive service.”” we see here is a dangerous one. I do not completely agree with Tim Mulligan, analyst at MIDiA Research. You see, he relates Netflix back to TV, yet we all forget that Netflix is not merely new, it is in a position to become more than: ‘the large new kid on the block‘, yet what Tim fails to see is that Netflix is optionally the new cornerstone of entirely different block, Netflix has been setting new grounds, but the inconceivable still exists, Netflix and rivals have the option to become the rulers of Tinsel town II, a setting that scares Hollywood and the large players in cinematography. They know that this is still a reality that they face and it makes every analyst take a 90 degree turn, but the reality is that short sighted on what makes for any Tinsel town is the opportunity that hands Netflix the goods. Whilst the realisation of avoiding ‘value of those rights has now spiralled, which has pushed up Netflix’s content budgets and fuelled its drive to produce its own content‘ is clearly there, the fact that no one sees the options available is equally disturbing, are they not seeing it, or are they too scared and pushing away FROM it, two very different realities. and one is a steal to own if you see beyond the 4 lines that makes the square that some analysts put you in, realising that lines on a map mean nothing to the map itself, only then can you embrace the new course where those talking the leap have an option (if ALL the conditions are right) to become the new rulers of a market no one saw coming in the first place.
That is what separates the visionaries from the second rate followers.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 