Marketplace‘s analysis of Netflix’s recent agreement with Spotify focuses on the two companies’ competitive landscape. But I think the main benefit for Netflix will be a newfound ability to stream commentary on current events without needing to change their own content creation model.
Netflix’s multi-million-dollar contracts rope celebrities into making multi-year, multi-creation, rewatchable content. These movies and shows are durable investments. Netflix has…tried? to host some live events, but that’s just not their core business model. Does anyone else feel weird when Netflix tries to convince you to watch a specific boxing match at a future date and time even though all you really want is to watch Love Island right now?
No one’s figured out how to succeed at contemporaneous backward-looking streaming. Streamers use scheduled episode drops to create forward-looking enticements. But backward-looking late-night shows and news commentary remain solidly in network TV’s domain. The event-responsive coverage that drives these shows’ success directly contradicts streaming’s on-demand appeal.
But soon Netflix will be able to stream almost-contemporaneous commentary on sports, entertainment, really any subject covered by a Spotify podcast that releases video of its recording sessions. Durable, rewatchable House of Cards was famously reverse-engineered from Netflix’s algorithm. I’m very curious to see what backward-looking coverage and commentary will earn Netflix’s reverse-engineered investment.
Liz Welsh 