All eyes on 'Squid' Game season 2 as the battle for streaming subscribers intensifies
Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down the latest developments in the streaming wars.
Video Transcript
ZACK GUZMAN: In this week's Fame and Fortune, a closer look at the streaming wars as Netflix surges past Disney after they got absolutely blown up after their earnings report showed a slowdown in subscribers for its streaming platform, Disney Plus. And of course, Squid Game, there's been a large factor as to why Netflix has enjoyed a nice 2021 is. That success arguably came out of nowhere, and this prompted "Squid Game 2." And for more on that, I want to get on Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal. who is taking a closer look at that battle. Ally,
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah, Zack, the director of "Squid Game" confirming during an interview with the AP that "Squid Game" season two will be coming now. I did reach out to Netflix for comment. A spokesperson told me that while they are currently in discussions, know season two has been finalized. But still, I would be pretty shocked this doesn't end up happening. "Squid Game" was the number one series launch for the company to date.
And we've recently got Nielsen figures that showed that the momentum that the series generated when it debuted September 17 carried through into mid-October. According to those numbers, more than 2.25 billion minutes were streamed across "Squid Games" nine episodes, October 11 through the 21st, the most-viewed streaming title in the US during that time.
On top of that, "Squid Game" was relatively cheap to make, costing just over 21 million. But a recent Bloomberg report said that the series is now worth over $900 billion-- $900 million, I should say for Netflix, so a really good investment for them. I did watch the series. I was on the edge of my seat, anxiety-inducing.
I am crossing my fingers for season two, and I think this is going to be a great major step for the company as it looks to be the best streaming player globally. I think that's a goal for them. They've had a success with other international films like "Roma," but Squid Game is just on a completely different level here. So I think that's something to look out for as we head into 2022.
- Alexandra, I was also on the edge of my seat. I couldn't stop watching. It was like a train wreck that just kept going, so I can't wait to see. I don't know how it could get any more tense, but I'm waiting to see what they can do. But want to touch briefly. Netflix overtook Disney in market cap yesterday. What does that all mean for the streaming wars amid subscriber growth start slowing down at the moment. There are less people signing on, right?
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah, I think it's starting to really underscore the fact that original content equals subscriber growth. Investors were very disappointed in that. I think, Disney executives were trying to warn throughout the quarter temper sentiment that we are going to start to see the pullback or the pull forward effect, I should say, that happened during the pandemic.
But with "Squid Game," that's not the only successful original title for Netflix. They also have "You." They got "Maid." And both of those films and series have done incredibly success, have seen incredible success over the past few weeks. And if we just take a look at how much money both of these streaming giants spend on content, Netflix spent $17 billion this year alone.
Meanwhile, Disney has said they plan to spend between 8 and 9 billion over the next several years. So that just goes to show the difference in strategy here. I think Disney needs to shake things up a bit. I also think they need to broaden out their content. They have very specific franchises like Marvel, "Star Wars," those children's programming.
And that was great to start. But now, they need to introduce some more types of programming, some different types of original content to try and get a new demographic in there and try and attract new consumers that weren't necessarily in there before. All that being said, Disney still expects between 230 and 260 million subs over the next three years. We'll see if they can get there.
Certainly, a long way to go, but there's still a lot of time left in the streaming landscape, I think there's still more to be seen, where we see some more M&A, where we see some of these newer entrants drop out. But you cannot stay idle if you want to be number one in this space because of how crowded the field is. So Disney has to keep that in mind through the rest of this quarter and into 2022.
