With the emergence of streaming services, the whole entertainment business rulebook has been rewritten, allowing providers such as Netflix to simultaneously debut a new movie or TV series across numerous areas with the click of a mouse.
Netflix is likely the most prominent example of a large entertainment corporation that has not just leaned into, but has dove headfirst into its global content strategy—and it has the receipts to prove it.
After introducing their video-on-demand platform and started to downscale its DVD shipping service in 2007, Netflix launched its first foreign push in 2010 by expanding their VOD services to Canada.
Only a decade later, the streaming service has more than 193 million global members spread over 190 countries.
One of the most significant jumps that Netflix made on the tortuous road to establishing itself as the go-to entertainment provider for a large section of the world’s population was from licencing other studios’ material to generating their own.
The original Netflix business was stockpiling pre-existing episodes and movies with pre-existing viewers.
However, licencing and re-licensing assets can be expensive, and this caused Netflix’s catalogue to change considerably as favourite films were removed from the site when contracts expired or studios opted to create their own streaming services.
Netflix quickly shifted to a long-term strategy. The streamer adopted a new approach of sponsoring and developing their own catalogue of new, original material, to which they would have perpetual rights. Netflix Originals would be available in the Netflix library throughout perpetuity.
Initially, Netflix’s original content resembled a mash-up of prestige TV, eccentric film festival fare, and critically derided comedy that yet fared exceptionally well.
As their membership numbers increased, the firm decided to implement a new strategy to assist them continue to develop as they expanded internationally: create local-language content particularly directed towards consumers in the various countries where they were making inroads.
