Back in May, just as people started settling into their quarantine binge-watching, Netflix started adding fewer shows. American TV and film studios will resume production in a few weeks, following a content shortage due to worldwide coronavirus shutdowns. But in the meantime, Netflix is outsourcing its offerings. The industry-leading streaming giant is outbidding British channels for new shows, leaving those broadcasters with empty pipelines.
Even without scooping series from the UK, Netflix is too big to fail. Its average pageviews per week for every million users has increased by 90% over the past two years. Recently though, we've seen a slight dip in web traffic, down by 18% from late March to today.
Still, Netflix's YTD weekly web traffic ranking and stock price have grown in step.
In April, Netflix added 31 shows, slightly up from March's 25, but a clear drop from February's 44 and January's 35. The network has added 140 Netflix Originals since May, which breaks down to 35 new shows each month.
In early spring, the number of Netflix Original launches spiked. The network was averaging 1.5 new shows per day, up from an average of 1 a day in 2019.
Despite shutdowns, Netflix is still scheduling to spend a healthy $17.3 billion on original content by the time 2020 closes. It's already seen major success in 2020 with the campy and weirdly intriguing Tiger King documentary series and guilty-pleasure Real Housewives-adjacent reality show Selling Sunset. Netflix's backlog hasn't backed up yet. And by tapping into the UK's well, the streaming service has avoided any chance of a plateau.
About the Data:
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