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8/9/2023
Good afternoon and welcome to the Netflix Q3 2023 Earnings Interview. I'm Spencer Wong, VP of Finance, IR and Corporate Development. Joining me today are co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters and CFO, Spence Newman. Our interviewer this quarter is Jessica Reif-Ehrlich from Bank of America. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements and actual results may vary. Jessica, let me turn it over to you now for your first question.
Thank you. So let's start with you, Ted. Now that one strike is over, the Writers Guild, what are the implications for your business?
Thanks, Jessica. Let me first say we want nothing more than to resolve this and get everyone back to work. That's true for Netflix. That's true for every member of the NPTP. It's why our member CEOs have prioritized these negotiations above everything else we're doing. We spent hours and hours with SAG-AFTRA over the last few weeks, and we were actually very optimistic that we were making progress. But then at the very end of our last session together, the Guild presented this new demand that kind of on top of everything, for a per subscriber levy unrelated to viewing or success. And this really broke our momentum, unfortunately. But you should know we are incredibly and totally committed to ending this strike. The industry, our communities, and the economy are all hurting. So we need to get a deal done that respects all sides as soon as we possibly can. In terms of the impact, these are the times that I'm glad we have such a rich and deep and broad programming selection. Programming costs themselves rise nearly every year, primarily driven by competition. Competition for talent, competition for shows and films. And you can see we've managed successfully through that year on year on year. And the same is true for during COVID when we were able to manage the slate through prolonged and pretty unpredictable production interruptions. But I really think we're not really that focused right there on how this impacts much, except for our biggest opportunity, which is to continue improving the quality of the slate. We focused on that day in, day out, year in, year out. And I'm incredibly pleased with Bella and the team and the progress that they're making. So if you'll indulge me for just a second, I just would draw your attention to the Q4 slate as an example of that. you know, headlined by the return of the crown for its final season. You know, this is one of the most ambitious television shows in the history of television. We have a new season of Big Mouth, a new season of Elite, the launch of Berlin, which is a spinoff from our La Casa de Papel or Money Heist franchise, and new limited series like All the Light You Cannot See from Sean Levy, that's incredible, and Bodies from the UK. And that's just on the TV side. And the film side, one of our strongest quarters ever, We have this enormous sci-fi spectacular from Zack Snyder, Rebel Moon, a new film from David Fincher, The Killer, and these films that just lit up the fall film festivals recently, like May, December from Todd Haynes and Bradley Cooper's Maestro, the doc feature, American Symphony, that's all coming in Q4. And for family viewing too, we've got a new animated feature from Adam Sandler, Galileo, that's hysterical. Chicken Run 2, which is the sequel to the most successful stop-motion animation film ever. And a new series from the Cocomelon world called Cocomelon Lane. Family Switch from director McGee, which stars Jennifer Garner and Ed Helm. So it's an incredible slate, something new and exciting for all tastes, all moods, all ages. And we're just super proud of the team that they've been able to manage through this and still deliver so much joy for our members.
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