More Netflix employee cuts are coming, and soon. That’s the latest word from sources at the company, which has been quietly trimming staff for months, and officially laid off 25 marketing people last week. It’s all thanks to the subscriber slowdown and a full-blown market meltdown, of course. Losing two-thirds of your market capitalization will cause some serious re-examination of your celebrated “culture deck.”
Amid all this, and given the level of chatter and schadenfreude around town, it’s important to note what is, and isn’t, happening. Yes, the planned spending growth has been halted. Pricey projects are getting a second look. (Unfortunately, the Mike Myers debacle The Pentaverate—the first episode of which consumed 31 minutes of time I will never get back—could not be stopped.) The pressure is definitely on TV chief Bela Bajaria and film head Scott Stuber to deliver more hits with those insane content budgets.
But those budgets are still there. Netflix is planning to spend $17 billion to $18 billion on TV and film content this year, well above rivals—and in most foreign territories, the spending will continue to grow. Chatting with people around Hollywood, you’d think Netflix is collapsing under the weight of a thousand Ryan Murphy deals. But those 220 million subscribers need not worry about that—for awhile, at least.
