JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Netflix has announced record-setting growth in the fourth quarter of 2024, adding 19 million subscribers. The bump came when it had popular programming, like the second season of the drama series "Squid Game" and two NFL games on Christmas Day, including a halftime performance by superstar Beyonce.
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BEYONCE: (Singing) Jolene, I know I'm a queen, Jolene.
SUMMERS: Netflix now says it has a total of 302 million subscribers globally and has already implemented price hikes across all its subscription categories. Here to talk about all of this with us is NPR TV critic and media analyst Eric Deggans. Hi there.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: I'm still grooving to "Jolene."
SUMMERS: You and me both.
DEGGANS: (Laughter) Weeks later.
SUMMERS: Let's get serious for a second, Eric. I mean, these announcements came during Netflix's fourth quarter earnings report. And, I mean, this seems like quite the victory lap for them.
DEGGANS: Yeah, these numbers are pretty impressive. I mean, over all of 2024, their subscriptions rose by 41 million. They say each subscriber watches an average of two hours per day and seven films a month. Now, overall, they're estimating a global audience of over 700 million people, and that's quite a turnaround for a company that kicked off this global reset in the streaming industry when it lost subscribers in 2022. And even though Netflix has had some attention-getting live events at the end of last year - they had the boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson and they had those two NFL games - the streaming service says that popular series and movies also help build their popularity. And coming off that success, they plan to spend 18 billion - with a B - on new content this year.
SUMMERS: So, Eric, is there anything else that might have led to this subscriber growth over the last few years?
DEGGANS: Well, that's a good question. I mean, in recent years, Netflix basically adopted these strategies that they had kind of rejected in the past to shore up their subscriptions. So they created a cheaper subscription tier with ads. They had a crackdown where they asked people to pay more to share passwords. And now they're moving more into live events with WWE wrestling, a new variety talk show from John Mulaney and the return of the NFL on Christmas Day in 2025. This all points to a business that's willing to pivot strategies while it's positioning itself as the future of television, as more traditional platforms like cable TV are really struggling to survive.
SUMMERS: All right, we've got to bring it back. I want to talk about these price hikes that are coming for subscribers.
DEGGANS: I guess if you're going to raise prices, you might as well do it when there's a bunch of good news out there, too (laughter), right? So Netflix has boosted prices for all of its subscription tiers. The standard service with ads is going to go up $1 to about $8 a month, and that's the first increase we've seen in that tier since it was created. Standard service is going to rise about $2.50 to about $18 a month, and premium service is going to hike $2 to about $25 monthly.
Now, back in 2022, Netflix had subscriber issues after they raised prices. So it's kind of interesting that the company recently reminded everybody that they announced plans a long time ago to stop reporting detailed subscriber figures in every quarterly earnings announcement going forward. So it might be tough to track what impact this rise in prices is going to have on their future subscription levels. And, you know, as the largest streaming service, Netflix has always been a bellwether for the streaming TV industry, so analysts are going to be looking real close to how the company capitalizes on its fourth quarter success in this coming year.
SUMMERS: That's NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. Thank you.
DEGGANS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEYONCE SONG, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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