Instant Reaction: Netflix Disappoints Again with Slow Growth

Summary

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Bloomberg Surveillance: Instant Reaction — Netflix Disappoints Again with Slow Growth

Date: July 16, 2026
Host: Tim and Bloomberg Surveillance Team
Guests:

• Felix Gillette (Bloomberg News Media & Entertainment Editor)
• Eric Clark (CIO, ACU Best Global Advisors)
• Geeta Ranganathan (Senior Media Analyst, Bloomberg Intelligence)
• Ed Ludlow (Host, Bloomberg Tech)

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Episode Overview

This special episode delivers immediate reaction and in-depth analysis of Netflix’s latest earnings report, marking its second consecutive quarter of slowing sales growth. The discussion centers on what the results mean for investors, whether Netflix remains the streaming industry’s “utility,” changing engagement trends, competitive pressures (notably from YouTube), and Netflix’s future opportunities both in the U.S. and abroad.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Netflix's Q2 Results & Immediate Market Reaction

• Netflix stock dropped over 8% in after-hours trading following lackluster revenue and earnings guidance.
• Q2 revenue growth slowed again, compounding investor concerns after a similarly disappointing Q1.
• Netflix projected revenue of $12.9 billion and earnings of $0.82 per share—figures that failed to impress (02:00).

Quote:

“A second consecutive quarter of slowing sales growth. And so investors have got to be having some questions about, you know, where does growth come from and what's the future for Netflix.”
— Tim, Host (02:12)

Investor Perspective: Is Netflix Still a Buy?

• Eric Clark (ACU Best Global Advisors): Remains positive, framing Netflix as a "consumer utility" with “stable, predictable business” and impressive free cash flow.
• Highlights Netflix’s record $4.7B stock buyback this quarter, seeing it as management’s vote of confidence (03:24).
• Clark suggests volatility is normal, and the summer dip (lower engagement) is nothing new.
• Considers Netflix attractive at current multiples (~21x earnings).

Quote:

“Every quarter is a little bit noisy. I don't think anything's changed with the story… it's a stable, predictable business with big free cash flow and a big buyback.”
— Eric Clark (03:57)

“Utility” or “Hits Business?” The Content Conundrum

• Felix Gillette (Bloomberg): Pushes back on the “utility” label, reminding that Hollywood is a “hits business.” Notes Netflix’s huge 2025 (Stranger Things, Squid Games, K Pop Demon Hunters) and a clear 2026 hangover without another major tentpole (06:08, 06:30).
• Netflix faces cyclicality; engagement after blockbuster years naturally dips.
• Recent acquisition attempts (Warner Bros Discovery) and subsequent failures are seen as narrative-shaping events, possibly adding pressure.

Quote:

“Hollywood is still a hits business, right? Netflix hasn't had huge hits so far this year—it’s that simple. These things are very cyclical.”
— Felix Gillette (06:08)

Transparency, Reporting, and Perception

• Netflix will now only publish its “What We Watch” viewership report yearly instead of semi-annually, which panelists interpret as a sign of discomfort about slowing engagement (08:03, 08:11).
• Experimentation is visible: Netflix is trying podcasts, video podcasts, bringing in new creators, and venturing into short-form and live content to boost daytime engagement.

Quote:

“They’re kind of throwing things against the wall… trying podcasts, video podcasts… to see if that works.”
— Felix Gillette (08:11)

Quality vs. Quantity & Competition

• Apple TV+ lauded for quality. Netflix is seen as quantity-over-quality, with occasional discoverability issues—some users miss new seasons of favorite shows due to algorithm/homepage design (11:12 – 11:43).
• Apple stands out for marketing, casting, and clear communication about new content.
• Netflix, once seeking to “be HBO before HBO becomes us,” is seen as having shifted to a “everything for everyone” model, more akin to CBS (12:22 – 12:28).

Quote:

“They became much more like CBS, the everything for everyone forever.”
— Felix Gillette (12:22)
“Discovery on your homepage… is not [great]... sometimes I'm amazed a new season comes out and I didn't even know that.”
— Felix Gillette (11:39)

The Challenge from YouTube and Attention Economy

• YouTube’s constant share of streaming time (13–14%) is stable, while Netflix’s is slipping (18:18).
• Panelists see YouTube as growing engagement faster than any streamer, especially with short-form content. Netflix’s short-form push suggests it recognizes this existential competitive threat.
• AI-generated content’s rise on YouTube poses further challenges for Netflix.

Quote:

“Look at the engagement numbers. YouTube keeps growing at a faster rate than everybody else—it’s the one service out there growing its audience faster than Netflix.”
— Felix Gillette (12:28)
“If you have a glut of AI-generated content on YouTube, where will those Netflix numbers land? That’s the real big worry.”
— Geeta Ranganathan (18:18)

International Growth and New Strategies

• U.S. market saturation means Netflix must pursue growth overseas (13:21).
• Netflix is testing free trials in select international markets—some see this as a sign of some “desperation” (15:23).
• Global events (e.g., World Baseball Classic in Japan) are seen as opportunities, and free trials may help reignite subscriber momentum abroad.

Quote:

“There’s not too much more to grow there… so you have to look for opportunities overseas.”
— Felix Gillette (13:21)

Strategic Levers: Ads, AI, Bundling, Live Content

• Drawing on Netflix’s own messaging, analysts see three new priorities:
  1. Broaden entertainment offering: Beyond series/films—live sports, games, podcasts, YouTube-style video (16:55).
  2. Use AI to expand margins.
  3. Build a real advertising business (17:52).
• Some suggested Netflix might experiment with bundling, becoming an aggregator, and integrating live linear content as traditional subscriber and engagement growth slows.

Quote:

“Netflix is trying to do something really difficult: change consumer behavior a little bit as it relates to them.”
— Ed Ludlow (20:43)

Investor Sentiment & Forward-Looking Concerns

• Geeta Ranganathan (Bloomberg Intelligence) highlights muted sentiment and a lack of new, clear strategy levers, contrasting to prior bold moves like paid sharing and advertising.
• Anxiety centers on declining engagement, tepid guidance, and unclear prospects for reigniting meaningful growth.

Quote:

“This really…feeds into this whole bearish thesis and further spooks investors about what the direction is going to be going forward and how this company is going to reinvigorate growth.”
— Geeta Ranganathan (14:13)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On cyclical nature and the challenge of hits:
  “When HBO was at the top…everyone was like, oh my God, what's going to happen to HBO…then along comes Game of Thrones.”
  — Felix Gillette (07:29)

• On Netflix’s value proposition and churn:
  “They've raised prices 5% a year on average since they started in '08…still the cheapest game in town from an entertainment perspective.”
  — Eric Clark (09:38)

• On discovering content:
  “Sometimes I'm amazed that like a new season of a show I've watched previously is out and I'm like, I didn't even know that.”
  — Felix Gillette (11:39)

• On YouTube competition:
  “If you want to become something now, clearly…YouTube is occupying that space… Netflix doing podcasts, short-form video…seems a little bit desperate at some level.”
  — Felix Gillette (12:22, 12:28)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Q2 results, market reaction: 02:00 – 03:24
• Buy, sell, or hold analysis (Eric Clark): 03:24 – 04:36
• Is Netflix a utility? (Felix Gillette): 05:32 – 07:22
• Cycle of hits and HBO analogy: 07:29
• Annualizing “What We Watch” report, transparency concerns: 08:03 – 08:11
• Quality vs quantity, Apple TV+ comparison: 11:02 – 11:43
• Netflix’s evolving identity, CBS analogy: 12:22 – 12:28
• YouTube power and short-form content: 12:28 – 13:08, 18:18
• International growth, free trials: 13:17 – 15:37
• Investor sentiment, lack of new levers: 14:13 – 15:23
• Three pillars of Netflix’s new strategy (Ed Ludlow): 16:55 – 17:52
• The challenge of changing consumer behavior: 19:29 – 20:53

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Conclusion

The episode frames Netflix at a “crossroads”—still the streaming giant, but now facing slowing growth, heightened competition (particularly from YouTube and Apple), and tougher questions from investors. While some panelists remain confident (citing Netflix’s stability, buybacks, and potential abroad), others worry strategic responses aren’t bold enough or sufficiently clear. With its “hits” uneven, engagement sliding, and transparency questioned, the panel sees Netflix’s next act—including how it embraces live content, advertising, and AI—as crucial inflection points for the company’s future.

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Transcript

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[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Bloomberg Audio

[Bloomberg Promo Voice]

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[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

this is a

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

breaking news update from Bloomberg.

[Eric Clark]

Instant reaction and analysis from our 3,000 journalists and analysts around the world.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

We are focused on Netflix. We're going to bring up the trade for you because we did see the stock bouncing around in the after hours. I remind you that it's down more than 20% year to date, down more than 30% since hitting a recent high back on April 16. That's when it reported earnings last time and there was disappointment about revenues and call it so two quarters in a row. Quick check on some of the numbers in terms of Netflix and we did see that as we mentioned, second consecutive quarter of slowing sales. The company projected revenue of 12.9 billion in earnings of 82 cents a share. So again a second consecutive quarter of slowing sales growth. And so investors have got to be having some questions about, you know, where does growth come from and what's the future for Netflix. Although let's point out still the giant

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

when it comes to streaming, it is still the giant. I want to bring in a great roundtable. To kick off our coverage. We've got Felix Gillette with us, Bloomberg news media and entertainment editor. He's here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Also joining us, Eric Clark, the CIO of ACU Best Global Advisors. He focuses on consumer stocks including Netflix. He also manages the Alpha Brands Consumption Leaders etf. Erik, I want to start with you because in the Alpha Brands Consumption Leaders ETF ticker logo, the fifth biggest holding after Nvidia, Broadcom, Eli Lilly and TSMC is Netflix. After a report like this, are you buying? Are you selling? Are you holding? What are you doing?

[Eric Clark]

Hey, Tim, great to see you. You know, this is a continuation of our conversation last last quarter. We, you know, it's a consumer utility and I have nothing too bad to say other than, you know, quarter to quarter things are going to bounce around. We still believe in the story. We still believe in the growth opportunities. It's summertime, so viewership might be a little lower. We're all out having fun at the beach and you know, they bought back, you know, 4.7 billion a stock. There's still 27 billion left on the authorization. So that's the biggest quarterly buyback in history. So I'm happy to see that they took advantage of the weakness. That's what I was hoping and expecting them to do. To me, that sends a little bit of a signal but, you know, every quarter is a little bit noisy. I don't think anything's changed with the story. You know, in many ways it's a stock that was outside of the tech and the AI theme. And you know, they've discarded everything that isn't tech and AI up until the last two weeks. And so, you know, this utility now at 21 times looks pretty attractive as a stable, predictable business with big free cash flow and a big buyback.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

When does the utility with second consecutive quarters of slowing sales growth, when does that trend become worrisome? Does it have to be 3? Does it have to be 4? Does it have to be more? What does it have to be?

[Eric Clark]

Well, I, you know, I think it's less about that and just more about when we get into the fall when engagement starts to rise again. We know they're pretty comfortable with ad revenue rising. That's high margin business, free cash flow or you know, free cash flow generation, really good margin still creeping up. So I'm not worried about a dime here or 5 cent there. In the end, a utility has a very good defensive range of Earnings. And that's what we see with Netflix. We've just transitioned from a go go growth stock to, to more a growth at a reasonable price stock into the, into the core. So in some ways, we've changed the shareholder base over from one kind of growth investor to a more stable core investor.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

I want to bring in Felix Gillette. He's Bloomberg News media and entertainment editor. He's also the author of it's not tv, the Spectacular Rise Revolution and Future of hbo. He joins us here on set. So Eric keeps saying utility over and over again, but when I think of utility, I think I only have one utility, like, you know, the provider of my water, the electricity or Internet into my home.

[Felix Gillette]

Yeah.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

In my home I have. Oh, my God. Well, now I, now I pay for Fox One, thanks to the World Cup. So that's another 30 bucks or whatever. But I got Netflix, I got Paramount, I got hbo, Max, I got all of these things right now. And I, I don't know. Like, do you agree that it is that Netflix is a utility?

[Felix Gillette]

Well, I mean, I think at some level, Hollywood is still a hits business, Right. And, you know, Netflix hasn't had huge hits so far this year. I mean, I think it's that simple. And you think it's also, these things are very cyclical. I mean, think of the year Netflix had in 2025. They had the last season of Stranger Things, which was huge. They had the last season of Squid Games, which was huge. They had K Pop Demon Hunters, the biggest movie in the history of the service. And so coming off that, there's a little bit of a hangover. And I think every other streaming service would probably look at Netflix's engagement and their numbers and they kill for it. But compared to Netflix's 2025. Yeah, the engagement isn't as good as it was last year. And, you know, I think, you know, they'll probably bounce back. They've had modest successes. They've had, you know, animated movies like Swap that have done well, just not as well as K Pop Demon Hunters. And, you know, I think that combined with making the bold move to try and go out and buy Warner Brothers Discovery and then, you know, at a certain point losing out to Paramount, Skydance, like that, those two things combined, you get a narrative of, oh, what's wrong with Netflix? But in some ways, you know, it reminds me a lot of, like, I

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

forgot they were going after that. Is that funny?

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Investors didn't like it.

[Felix Gillette]

Yeah, I know.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

They were going after it.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Anyway, I interrupted.

[Kel Penn]

Go ahead.

[Felix Gillette]

Well, I was going to say, it reminds me a little bit of like, you know, in the previous era, what happened with hbo, if you remember, you know, when HBO was at the top of the previous era of Home Entertainment 2007, when the Sopranos ended, everyone was like, oh, my God, what's going to happen to HBO people? The competitors are all, it's called let's call it HBO Over. You know, that was the nickname that year and everyone was, oh, it's a crisis. And then, you know, a little bit time passes, along comes Game of Thrones, right.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Richard Plepler says, hold my beer.

[Felix Gillette]

Yeah. And so it's like, you know, I think, you know, nothing's radically changed about Netflix's program and strategy.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

What do you make of they're going to post their what we watch report yearly versus semi, annually. Is that a big deal, Felix?

[The Hartford Representative]

Yeah.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

I mean, why do they do that?

[Felix Gillette]

I think that shows a little bit of a lack of confidence, you know, and, you know, scaling back what they share with all of us. I think, you know, there's been a lot of reporting, including by Lucas Shaw here, about the drop in viewership on the second seasons of some of their hit shows. And so, yeah, I think they've feeling a little bit sensitive about that. And they're also going through this phase now where they're kind of throwing things against the wall. You know, they're trying podcasts, video podcasts. They brought in, you know, some big names, Jay Shetty, people of that caliber. And they're going to see if that works. You know, can they drive up some of the daytime viewing, which hasn't been great for the service, you know.

[IBM Representative]

Yeah.

[Felix Gillette]

Like, who is who? What are you thinking?

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

No, it's just I'm thinking, like, why are you, who, watching Netflix in the middle?

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Well, some people can.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

No, I know, I know everybody has different work schedules and stuff, but like Netflix, it's. So much has changed in a dozen years. I mean, Netflix used to.

[The Hartford Representative]

They used to.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

I mean, Sandvine used to tout these numbers that, like, at any given moment in the evening, Netflix accounts for like X percentage of all traffic on the Internet because that's what. That's the only thing there was to stream.

[The Hartford Representative]

Right.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

And that picture has changed so much.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

There's a lot of choices.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Yeah.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Eric Clark, do you come on back CIO over at Acuvest Global Advisors. Do you buy. If the stock is down? It is about 5% or so. Do you find this a good entry Point then?

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

8.4%.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Oh, forgive me. So it's down even more.

[Eric Clark]

Yeah, well, the options markets were predicting this. So, you know, lots of things happen from the options markets to some somehow mirror what's what people are playing. It's easy to push things around. But yes, I would like to buy a little bit more. I'm not going to get crazy. We're going to just nibble. When the, when the company using the biggest buyback is nibbling, then I'm certainly going to be nibbling. And again, I always ask people what's going to make you churn your Netflix? You know, everybody and I would love to see Netflix do better, higher quality content. They have a big enough library at this point, they don't have to just flood the their library with stuff. Now let's focus on quality number one, and let's add more sports and live entertainment number two, and that'll right the ship, in my opinion. So yeah, I would love to take advantage of it down here. It's just too cheap. And again, it's, to me, utility and a staple is kind of synonymous with the same thing. And, and I don't know what it would take. They've, they've raised prices 5% a year on average since they started this in 08. So that's a nice little tailwind as well. And it's still the cheapest game in town from an entertainment perspective. So there's just a lot to like, even if it's out of favor right now. And now it's cheap.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Felix, what do you think of Eric's quality comment? Because when I think of like,

[Ed Ludlow]

I

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

think I subscribe to all the streaming services and when, when I think of the one that has sort of the lowest number of overall titles but the highest quality, honestly, Apple is doing a really good job with that.

[Felix Gillette]

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I would also say Apple really aggressively markets their shows and when they have a new show that they believe in, they put a lot of marketing power behind it.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

They're star power. Unbelievable.

[Felix Gillette]

They have great casting. What you know, but they also, they let you know that a show is coming. I think with Netflix, sometimes they just put stuff up there and you know you're going to find it. And sometimes I'm amazed that like a new season of a show I've watched previously is out and I'm like, I didn't even know that because maybe because

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

the discovery on your, on your homepage or whatever is not. Or your home screen.

[Felix Gillette]

Yeah, it's probably my kids messing it up with their shows.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Yeah, it probably is, but that's also Netflix's fault. I mean, that's. That you're not seeing it.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Yeah, no, but I agree, like I go to some of these streaming platforms and I'm like, God, there's so much stuff and like, and I get off. But Apple, it just feels very clean. It's, you know, it's a fewer few choices or fewer choices. I don't know.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

You have to run soon, Felix. So we're going to a few more with you and then we're going to keep, keep Eric in with us. The HBO side of this, I mean, years ago, who was it? Was it Ted Sarandos who said we want to become HBO before or was it Reed Hastings? It was Ted whose Ted said we want to be HBO before HBO becomes us. Has Netflix actually become hbo? It doesn't feel like it has.

[Felix Gillette]

No. I think they became much more like cbs. You know, they became like the everything for everything forever.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Yeah.

[Felix Gillette]

And I think, you know, now if they had to say who they want to become, I mean, clearly the, you know, YouTube is occupying that space now and they're worried about YouTube because look at the engagement numbers. I mean, YouTube keeps growing at a faster rate than everybody else and that's the one service out there that really is growing its audience faster than Netflix. And I think so you see Netflix, you know, doing podcasts, doing video podcasts. Now they're going to throw in short form video from, you know, Conde Nast and buzzfeed, which I don't know, that seems, you know, a little bit desperate at some level to, to get that daytime engagement up. But I think that's who they want to become now rather than everyone knows

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

if you want to get daytime engagement. The Jerry Speaker Springer show, it's what we all used to watch when you're homesick from school and the price is right. So everyone knows.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

What about overseas though? Is that still growth opportunities for them?

[Felix Gillette]

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, the, at some point, yeah, the US market becomes pretty saturated and you know, they stop sharing their subscriber numbers so we have to rely on the third party estimates. But yeah, I think like the US Market, there's not too much more to grow there and so you have to look for opportunities overseas and they do selective, you know, the World Baseball Classic in Japan where they get out and they see these opportunities to get more people involved. I think they're going to bring back free trials in some markets. So yeah, I think you have to look at the global, you know, audiences around the world and that's where their opportunities are.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

We're talking with Eric Clark, of course, over at ACU Vest. I want to bring into the conversation Geeta Ranganathan. She is Bloomberg Intelligence senior media analyst joining us from Princeton. Geeta, your reaction? The stock is down here a lot in the aftermarket. Do investors have it right in your view?

[Geeta Ranganathan]

Yeah, I mean, you know, coming into this quarter, obviously a lot of cautiousness, you know, very, very muted sentiment, a pretty low bar. But I think investors were definitely kind of hoping for something, you know, at least with the guidance on the operating margin front. And we don't, we didn't necessarily see that. So this really kind of feeds into this whole bearish thesis and further spooks investors about what the direction is going to be going forward and how this company is going to reinvigorate growth. I mean, to be fair, Carol, we've seen this movie before multiple times and every time we've seen management kind of pivot and lay out new strategies. I think the one that really comes to mind was in four years ago, back in 2022 when we saw negative subscriber growth and then we saw them kind of lay out a plan with advertising and the password crackdown with paid sharing. I'm just not sure that this time they have such clear cut levers that would necessarily move the needle and really kind of calm and soothe investor fears.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Yeah, it's interesting too. I was just looking at some stuff on the terminal. Netflix began testing free trials for people who have never subscribed in a number of markets around the world. Geeta, is that a sign of a little desperation or should smart.

[Geeta Ranganathan]

Maybe a little bit of both. But I think, you know, just kind of given, you know, the metrics that we're seeing right now, this whole concern around engagement, the fact that their revenue guidance for the third quarter came in lower than expected, the fact that they're not taking up their operating margin guidance, all of these again, kind of point to maybe it's a little bit of desperation. And you know, we've seen over the past few weeks concerns about, you know, the slowing engagement in Netflix kind of trying to experiment with different things. You know, maybe becoming an aggregator, having streaming bundles on their platform, integrating more live linear content and all of that basically shows that yes, you know, maybe something is broken slightly within their system. You know, the model might be slightly broken and they have to do something to really kind of juice up, you know, the growth, the growth here.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

All right, we're going to hang out to Geeta. Eric, thank you so much. This was really fun. We really appreciate it. Always. Always. Eric Clark, so CIO of Acuvest Global Advisors joining us from San Diego, staying with our Gita Ranganathan. We want to bring into it this conversation. Ed Ludlow too. He is of course host of Bloomberg Tech. He's out there on the west coast in San Francisco. Come on in on the conversation when it comes to Netflix investors. Disappointed here.

[Ed Ludlow]

Yeah, really disappointed in like, you know, this has done such a good job of explaining not just the numbers of the quarter gone in the outlook, but like history of where Netflix went and where it got to. I see three things, right? Like what's the story here? Netflix is trying to convince the market that there is like this second act beyond us being focused on subscriber growth. And it's like three buckets. One, become a broader entertainment platform. So not just TV and movies, live sports, video, podcasts, YouTube creators, etc. Games. But the whole point is like Netflix is still something you watch in the evening. What about during the rest of the day? And like reading through the letter and Lucas's write up and reporting is so clear. Second budget is guys use AI to expand margins. Netflix isn't the first to say that. And then they seem to be really trying to say, hey, we're building out a real advertising business here. If I was to sum up, what's the story? It's those three things in a bucket together.

[Bloomberg Host (Interviewer)]

Yeah. And I completely agree with you there. And, and one point of that, I guess, tied all together, I want to throw it over to geeta, which is YouTube. I mean what Ed is describing minus sort of the AI and original content is YouTube. And for, for years Netflix has talked about YouTube being a competitor. But what do people watch when they're not watching Netflix and they're on their phones, they're on Instagram, they're on TikTok and Geetha, they're on YouTube.

[Geeta Ranganathan]

Yeah. And that's exactly what the Nielsen Gage report is telling us, quote, you know, month after month. So we've seen YouTube numbers, the share of TV viewing times stay pretty constant, Tim, at about 13 to 14%. Meanwhile, Netflix numbers are the ones that are going down. And yeah, you can talk about, you know, how maybe the war and maybe, you know, the World cup and the Olympics are all kind of eating into Netflix's share of viewing time. But then that's the same story that holds good for YouTube as well. And we haven't seen those numbers really move. So I think this is what really, really worries investors because if you have a glut of AI generated content on YouTube. Where will those Netflix numbers land? And I think that's the real big worry.

[Bloomberg Host (Tim)]

Yeah. So is that what it means, Gita? And first to you, when they say the entertainment in their, in their letter, their investor letter, the entertainment industry remains dynamic and competitive. I mean, there is so much, Ed, come on in. I mean, coming at all of us in terms of choices and how we spend our time. And for some of us, increasingly, you know, maybe we're putting our phones down and we're actually going outside and doing stuff.

[Ed Ludlow]

Yeah. And you know, they go on to say in that reference to the industry, meaning dynamic, we plan to stay ahead by leveraging technology to improve the service, improving monetization. I think that's the ad side of it. And delivering more entertainment value. It's been so interesting. Like, you know, I just reflect, you know, earnings is always great to get into the numbers. It's good to give size and scope. I really hope the Gita will tell us about, you know, the margins and the buybacks and their cash flow because like, for ages, Netflix would say judge us on traditional financial metrics. Some of those are really good. You know, it's hard to say. You know, the reaction is serious. In the after hours, just from the World cup, right there was a podcast that I've been listening to, to for a long time. The rest is football. It was on Spotify. I listened to it as an audio only podcast. Football, meaning soccer. Absolutely. Loved it. Hosted by Gary Lineker. For the World cup, they committed to putting it live and in video daily on Netflix. That was a really interesting product to kind of track the arc of over the course of the World Cup. But like, I didn't tune into it live. I just like at the end of the day listen to it or watched it as a podcast when I had free time. So, you know, Netflix is trying to do something really difficult. Change consumer behavior a little bit as it relates to them.

[Bloomberg Promo Voice]

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[Kel Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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