Nolte: Netflix CEO Under Fire, New Ads Beg Subscribers to Keep Watching

Things over at Netflix are no longer rosy or perfect. The planet’s top streamer has hit a dead zone in three areas: 1) subscribers, 2) engagement [minutes watched], and 3) no massive cultural hits like Stranger Things, Tiger King, or House of Cards. The streamers’ problems are real and have manifested where nothing can hide, and that’s in a cratering stock price. Compared to this same time last year, Netflix’s stock is down an astonishing 45 percent. A little over two years ago, Netflix stock cost $115 per share. Today, it’s $66. This very real problem is also manifesting itself in two additional ways: People who matter are unhappy with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, and a series of new (and very dumb) ads pushing people to keep watching Netflix. “Bela Bajaria and 1,000 Netflix staffers have been let go, and Peter Rice has parachuted in as the streamer’s content chief. But the real change at the streamer may still be to come,” reports the far-left Deadline. “As a coterie of mostly former and some current Netflix executives have banded together in opposition to co-CEO Ted Sarandos‘ strategy for the company.” “With repeated assertions that ‘Ted has gone Hollywood,’ the former and current executives say they believe Netflix has ‘lost its mojo’ in the past few years,” the report adds. “Specifically, they assert the streamer has stumbled in moving from being a harsh workplace based on performance to ‘just another studio’ where politics are the ‘key’ factor for success.” RELATED: Netflix Must Enjoy Putting Out Flops “Those politics primarily are said to play out via proximity to Sarandos and being on board with his love of prestige programming, big names and Old Hollywood.” When Deadline uses the word politics, that means studio politics. If Ted likes you, that’s the secret to career success, as opposed to a little thing we call “merit.” In other words, everything you greenlight and produce might suck, but Ted enjoys having you around. This rebellion is a big deal for one reason: Ted Sarandos is The Guy. He’s the Louis B. Mayer of Netflix. He joined the company in 2000 as chief content officer and changed everything forever when he launched Netflix Streaming in 2007. Then he changed everything again with the visionary decision to produce exclusive Netflix programming, like Lilyhammer and House of Cards. Then he took it all global. Netflix is now the biggest entertainment company on the planet by a wide mile. Ted Sarandos is the Henry Ford of streaming. But Netflix has lost something. There was a time when you subscribed to Netflix because that’s what you did. You had to have Netflix. If you want tissues, you buy Kleenex. If you want flavored gelatin, you buy Jell-O. If you want to stream TV, you subscribe to Netflix. That’s how the world worked for 15 years… Those days are over, and they are over for one reason: the content on Netflix sucks. Watching Netflix shows and movies has become the emptiest experience in pop culture. Everything is either generic, woke, or both. Great TV and movies explore the human experience, which tells you something about yourself and gives you something to think about — something to sit with. Woke robs you of that by telling you what to think, by giving you all the answers. Then there’s the generic problem created by generic algorithm content that might hit your pleasure sensors, but it’s cotton candy, something you don’t feel so good about afterwards. On and off over the years, I’ve been a Netflix subscriber, and only two Netflix productions have stuck to my ribs. The first is Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, the second is the show Narcos. Other than that, my only memory of Netflix is endlessly surfing through a $5 billion pile of shit. There’s more truth, insight, and understanding of human nature in a 22-minute episode of Seinfeld than in that $5 billion pile of shit. So, in keeping with the spirit of what Netflix has devolved into, instead of fixing its content problem, it’s producing ads like the one below to encourage people to spend even more time scrolling through that $5 billion pile of shit: And like everything else on Netflix, that ad is over-produced, too long, and casts a dumb, unprofessional, and unattractive white guy as a bother to “people of color.” And this is why the user-generated content on YouTube is blowing Netflix away as far as total minutes watched. And this is why there is so much opposition to AI: because once Normal People can produce content using the same production values as Netflix, the leftist monopoly on storytelling comes to an end.