YouTube has been eating Netflix’s lunch for the last year with free, user-generated content that Netflix is dying to compete with. Previously, that took the form of video podcasts, which the streamer hoped would stave off competition from the free and ubiquitous video streaming giant owned by Google. Alas, no one wanted to pay the steadily increasing subscription fees to watch Pete Davidson interview his celebrity friends in a dank, cigarette-smoke-filled basement. Sure, the dank is what viewers tune in for, and a podcast you can smell simply by looking at it is innovative, but podcasts are already widely available for free elsewhere, and the market is flooded.
But being a decade late to the podcast game isn’t a good enough excuse for Netflix shareholders, who demand endless growth from now until eternity. So Netflix is trying another route to becoming Expensive YouTube: “Fan-Favorite Videos from Digital Publishers.” What are these “fan-favorite videos”? Simply put, YouTube leftovers. Netflix is partnering with BuzzFeed Studios, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People, and more to bring the videos that people watch on YouTube during their lunch breaks, like Vanity Fair‘s Lie Detector and Architectural Digest‘s Walking Tour, to paid subscribers. Putting free entertainment on paid TV should help keep Netflix’s algorithmic engine burning as the company slowly tries to convince its subscribers to pay for what’s already free because costly second seasons of hit series aren’t doing it.
Earlier this year, Netflix announced major partnerships with podcasts like The Ringer, Barstool Sports, and iHeartMedia. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like subscribers are sold on a podcast they can’t actually download and listen to on a run. All of this is to goose up Netflix’s stalled growth, which Netflix offset by password-sharing crackdowns and subscription fee increases. Nevertheless, Netflix has all but lost its position as the top name in streaming. Last year, YouTube accounted for 12.4% of all television viewing, far ahead of Netflix, which accounts for 7.5%. We look forward to Netflix announcing a new collection of Italian Brainrot videos coming to Netflix Kids.
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