• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar

3

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar

3

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
TechWorld's Most Admired Companies

Netflix Continues Its Quest to Become the Future of Television

By
Mathew Ingram
Mathew Ingram
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Mathew Ingram
Mathew Ingram
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 2, 2017, 4:34 PM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Netflix already dominates the market for streaming old movies and TV shows over the Internet, and it has built up a significant stable of original shows too, like Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards.

But Netflix isn’t stopping there. The company is also expanding aggressively into new genres including comedy, unscripted “reality” shows, and international content.

Over the past year or so, Netflix (NFLX) has been on a sustained spending binge, locking up the rights to a wide range of content as part of a planned $6 billion purchasing plan. In all, the company has said it will either fund, buy, or license hundreds of original shows, TV specials, documentaries, children’s shows, and movies this year alone.

One market where this buying spree is having a significant impact is the comedy market. Many professional standup comedians in the past might have signed big-money deals for comedy specials on HBO or some other cable channel. Now, a host of the top names have signed with Netflix instead, including Louis CK, David Chapelle, and Amy Schumer.

To give some sense of how much Netflix’s deep pockets have affected the existing business: just a few years ago, the average price for a top-tier comedy special would be in the $10-million range, according to Variety magazine. Now it is twice that amount.

When you’re spending a total of $6 billion on movies and TV programs this year the way that Netflix is, dropping $20 million for a special from Amy Schumer or Louis CK is chicken feed. Filming a regular scripted TV show can cost 10 times that much.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

“By the end of this year, unless somebody mounts a tremendous counterattack—which is getting increasingly harder—Netflix will have utter domination of one of five or six genres that exist,” comedy-special producer Brian Volk-Weiss told Variety.

The streaming giant is also pouring money into developing its own unscripted or “reality TV” shows, including one called Ultimate Beastmaster, which is produced by and stars actor Sylvester Stallone. The show pits contestants against an obstacle course, and in a unique twist, it is being filmed six different times for different markets.

Here again, Netflix’s free-spending ways are making a big difference. Since it hired Brandon Riegg from NBC last year to head up its unscripted TV unit, the company has signed a number of top producers. And it has done so in part by offering upfront deals for the full run of a show. By contrast, in many cases, TV networks put up money for a pilot and then decide whether to fund it.

“Netflix isn’t going to demand a year option while they give you $20K and tell you to make a sizzle reel that they expect you to spend $60K putting together, the way too many cable networks do,” veteran TV producer David Lyle told The Hollywood Reporter recently.

Lyle went on to say that “the competition should be scared out of their minds” by the arrival of Netflix on the scene. “These guys are monsters. They’re coming in to play and play hard.”

On top of those moves, Netflix says it is also expanding rapidly into international content as part of a global push it launched last year, when it opened for business in more than 200 countries. According to CEO Reed Hastings, the company has already spent $1.75 billion on licensing foreign shows and creating original content itself or through co-productions.

Hastings said Netflix currently has 90 original shows in development in more than a dozen European languages. He said that the Internet had allowed the company to “reinvent television,” by giving viewers the freedom to watch what they wanted, when they wanted it, and by allowing content producers to reach a global audience more easily than in the past.

About the Author
By Mathew Ingram
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Tech

Innovaccer's founders sit in chairs on a stage
AIData
Innovaccer’s CEO walked away from Disney and NASA to fix healthcare’s data mess. Now the startup has crossed $200 million in ARR
By Lily Mae LazarusJuly 23, 2026
28 minutes ago
cc
AISocial Media
Coke on its rebrand accidentally nailing Gen Z’s ‘fridge cigarette’ joke: ‘building on on the things people already know and love’
By Tatiana SatauaJuly 23, 2026
38 minutes ago
Photo of Mark Zuckerberg
AIMark Zuckerberg
‘Call us whatever the hell you want’: Mark Zuckerberg just launched an AI optimism blitz using nostalgia to sell Meta’s AI future amid backlash
By Mia OsmonbekovJuly 23, 2026
2 hours ago
bots
AIAI agents
Turns out Dead Internet Theory was right: AI agents are eating the Web, growing by nearly 8,000% and rewiring the Internet’s business model
By Mia OsmonbekovJuly 23, 2026
2 hours ago
sam altman speaks
AIOpenAI
OpenAI debuts ChatGPT Voice so you can have ongoing conversations, ask the AI to complete tasks while hands-free
By Emily ForliniJuly 23, 2026
3 hours ago
Musk says frontier AI models should face peer review from rival labs before release, with the government only stepping in as a last resort
AIElon Musk
Musk says frontier AI models should face peer review from rival labs before release, with the government only stepping in as a last resort
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 23, 2026
3 hours ago

Most Popular

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
Real Estate
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
1 day ago
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
Economy
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 22, 2026
1 day ago
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
3 days ago
'The man who dies rich dies disgraced': The last time America had such wealth inequality, Andrew Carnegie knew he had to give it all away
Success
'The man who dies rich dies disgraced': The last time America had such wealth inequality, Andrew Carnegie knew he had to give it all away
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
1 day ago
Spain lifted the World Cup, but the IRS still gets a cut of its $50 million pay day as players, coaches and refs all face complex U.S. “jock taxes”
Personal Finance
Spain lifted the World Cup, but the IRS still gets a cut of its $50 million pay day as players, coaches and refs all face complex U.S. “jock taxes”
By Joshua HongJuly 23, 2026
15 hours ago
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
AI
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
By Eva RoytburgJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.