Although Netflix continues to bleed subscribers (and projected back a couple of months ago that they would continue to do so), a bright spot appears for the company.
Today, they announced that their 20 million streaming subscribers burned through more than 2 billion hours of movies and TV shows in Q4. Using the low estimate, that’s 100 hours of streaming per person during the quarter, or a little over an hour of streaming content a day.
Reed Hastings also announced that Netflix streamed content to 45 different countries during the period.
“In the coming months, Netflix members can enjoy complete seasons of great TV series from all the major networks and most branded cable channels as well as fantastic films like Drive, Hugo, Captain America and Margin Call,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. “The more great TV shows and movies Netflix adds, the more people watch.”
He’s right – it’s probably going to come down to content. Not only is the company working hard to secure deals with groups like Disney-ABC, The CW, DreamWorks and Discovery Communications, they will also debut some exclusive programming in 2012. The previously announced David Fincher/Kevin Spacey project House of Cards will start later this year. Netflix also just announced Lilyhammer, a Stevie Van Zandt vehicle set to kick off February 6th.
2011 was a rough year for Netflix, after the price hike and the whole Qwikster debacle. Recent consumer research suggests that they might be weathering the storm, however. In a survey of subscribers, 91% said that they were at least moderately satisfied with Netflix in the month of December. This was only down 1% from the 92% of moderately+ satisfied customers in May.