Netflix

Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos said the streaming giant could one day get into the live sports games — but only if it owned and created the event itself. The company isn’t interested in buying rights from established sports leagues because, according to Sarandos, “the leagues hold all the pricing power.”

Netflix has finally crossed the tipping point in the U.S. According to a survey from RBC Capital Markets, 51% of Americans use the service, putting it above all of its OTT peers and even YouTube. Original content has helped push the service over the 50% mark.

Shares have rebounded nearly 20% since Netflix’s earnings “disappointed” investors last month. The stock is now up 140% this year, making it the best performer in the S&P 500. Netflix is just 8% below its all-time high. Here’s what’s fueling recent rise.

Networks that license shows to Netflix are pushing the streaming service to carry promotional branding for the network. ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder secured such a deal.

Instead of trashing the network news business, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings should focus on his core business. With the big old-line media companies growing more and more interested in the potential of OTT, Hastings is liable to find his programming suppliers morph into competitors.

Jeff Bewkes, the CEO of DC-owner Time Warner Inc., told analysts on a conference call Wednesday that the company is considering whether to let online services like Netflix have its shows several years after they first air, rather than one year later. He said that could mean more older episodes are available on-demand to traditional cable customers.

Netflix chief Reed Hastings thinks TV news — specifically national evening news — is dying. When asked about creating a live evening newscast — as rival HBO is doing with its partnership with Vice — Hastings responded: “You don’t want to invest in things that are dying.”

Netflix has built its brand in part via the reruns it has bought and streamed to users. Now the TV networks selling them are reexamining the cost of that easy money as Netflix has played an undeniable role in eroding their audiences. Peter Kafka reports on how all sides are girding up for the conflict there.

A new Gilmore Girls may be witty, heartfelt and great. I hope so. But it will be a different thing, no matter how much of the original talent returns, because there’s one thing even the best-funded, best-intentioned reboot can’t restore: lost time.

Sources confirm that Netflix has closed a deal with Warner Bros. for a limited-series revival of Gilmore Girls penned by series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and exec producer Daniel Palladino. Although negotiations with the cast are only now beginning, all of the major players — most notably Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Kelly Bishop and Scott Patterson — are expected back for the continuation. Additionally, according to multiple insiders, the revival will consist of four 90-minute episodes/mini-movies.

International competitors are offering similar fare, and even some of Netflix’s programming, making it harder for the video-streaming service to gain traction.

In a letter to shareholders, Netflix blamed disappointing U.S. subscriber growth during the third quarter on those new credit cards with chips, many of which require consumers to update their payment information for subscriptions to continue. Netflix gained 880,000 US subscribers during the third quarter, lower than expected by analysts. 

The company’s website shows today that it raised the monthly price for its standard streaming service by $1 to $9.99 for new subscribers in the U.S., Canada and some Latin American countries. Netflix says that it’s “modestly raising the price” so it can “continue adding more TV shows and movies including many Netflix original titles.”

Netflix has acquired global streaming rights to three TV shows, including CW’s Jane the Virgin, sources confirm. The streaming giant, which is expected to make the announcement today, also nabbed exclusive worldwide rights to sci-fi thrillers, USA’s Colony and CBS’s Zoo. The deals for the three come less than two weeks after Netflix announced the acquisition of exclusive global rights to ABC hit series How to Get Away with Murder.

Netflix found when it analyzed its global streaming data that when it comes to TV programs, some viewers need to take in a few episodes before they’re ready to commit. A hooked episode, according to Netflix, was defined when 70% of viewers who watched that episode went on to complete the first season.

After years of selling old seasons of hit shows exclusively to Netflix, some of the world’s biggest media companies are adjusting their strategy, signing deals with other streaming video services or making more episodes available on demand via traditional pay-TV distributors.

The CW is heading into its 10th anniversary next year. But before the network can start planning a fall 2016 celebration, it has to close three deals key to the network’s livelihood for the next decade. Coming up later this year is the CW’s pact with Netflix, followed next year by the agreements with Tribune and Hulu.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings doesn’t appear to be too worried about Apple muscling into his territory, even if investors are.

Tech giants including Amazon, Netflix and Google have joined up as the Alliance for Open Media to create a new open source video format. The new format would make it easier to move away from Adobe Flash, would support copy protection and would be suitable for low-power devices.

Hulu will expand its library in October as part of a new deal with cable network Epix. For Epix, the deal is an opportunity to attract more consumers who are wary of paying more than $100 for a package of cable channels.

The streaming service will introduce exclusive films and television series as part of a strategy to position itself as a digital entertainment hub for the postmillennial generation.

Thursday was a very bad day for media and tech stocks, but Netflix fared the worst as it fell 7.8% by the market’s close. Disney was down 6% and Time Warner down 5%. The fall illustrated that Netflix is not immune to the woes of other media companies.

If you’re watching Netflix, Netflix is watching you right back, trying to figure out how to keep you as a customer by, among other things, showing you what you might want to see next.

The biggest disrupter in the TV sphere is not the smartphone or YouTube. It’s Netflix, that $9-per-month streaming service that makes TV grids irrelevant, redefines how we think about “spoilers” and hands over control of timing to the consumer.

Last week, Netflix received 34 primetime Emmy nominations for House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black and the new Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. (HBO led the field with a record 126 nominations). And behind the scenes, Netflix confirmed plans to pour a whopping $5 billion into next year’s programming budget, topping the estimated $4.5 billion spent last year by HBO, Showtime, Amazon and Starz combined — a move that will give HBO a run for its money.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Here’s the latest from the Television Critics Association summer meeting in Beverly Hills, California, at which TV networks and streaming services are presenting details on […]

Instead of ignoring its DVD-by-mail operation that was dwindling but still bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits every year, the company concentrated on efficiency.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Angelina Jolie is teaming up with Netflix to direct an adaptation of “First they Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers.” The online streaming service […]

Netflix’s second-quarter performance followed a familiar script of rapid subscriber growth that has enthralled investors. Netflix added 3.3 million subscribers in the April-to-June period, giving it more than 65 million, a reach of around half the nation’s 123 million households.