Netflix is on a mission to monopolize the marketplace and they will achieve their goal by overpaying for content, on top of making their own original series and movies.
The gigantic streaming company is about to lose “Friends” and “The Office” in the coming months because the contracts will expire. And they’ll also lose Disney content in November after the studio launches Disney-plus.
But Netflix just acquired the biggest television show ever for an eye-popping $500 million.
Calling anything the biggest or the best of something is obviously subjective. One could argue that “Friends” or “The Office” are the two biggest television shows of all time but how do you really measure it?
Is it the ratings per episode? If that’s the case then the finale of “M*A*S*H” called
“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” would be the winner because a total of 105.9 million viewers tuned in that night.
Second place goes to “Cheers” for the finale entitled “One for the Road” where 93.5 million viewers tuned in.
Is it about syndication? Is it about quality? How about measuring it by what the actors/writers/producers got paid?
If the aforementioned is the case then “Seinfeld” dwarfs all of them by a mile and that’s why Netflix just paid north of half a billion dollars for a five year global streaming rights contract. That’s a lot of cheese. It’s almost jaw-dropping, no matter how good the show is, that this is how much it’s worth for just five years.
“Seinfeld” is an undeniably great show but is it really worth that much money?
Netflix is setting new precedents right and left.
On top of what seems like hundreds of original television shows and films they produce every single year, Netflix has a monopoly on standup comedy because they pay the talent enormous amounts.
Everyone was stunned when it was discovered that Netflix paid Dave Chappelle $20 million each for his first three standup specials after having been on hiatus from Hollywood for a decade.
But then Netflix paid British comic Ricky Gervais $40 million for “Humanity,” which was the most sold out comedy show of all time in Europe.
If you think that’s unprecedented then wait until you hear what Eddie Murphy is being paid for his new special. Murphy will take home a staggering $70 million for his upcoming standup routine, which will likely come out sometime next year.
This seems to be a running theme for Netflix, which is to just outspend everybody out of existence. Will Disney be hurt by it? Nope, not really.
But do you think Amazon or Hulu will be fazed by it? You bet they will. They can’t compete with that kind of outbidding.
That’s essentially like a billionaire going to a small time auction and just buying everything by overpaying; knowing the locals can’t afford to keep up.
That’s why Netflix is monopolizing the marketplace. They just want to dominate it in any way they can.