Netflix plans $300 million original content spend

Online streaming service Netflix is to spend up to US$300 million (€223 million) on original content as it ramps up competition with premium broadcasters including HBO.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told the annual UBS Media and Communications conference in New York that it would ramp up original production following the commission of series including David Fincher’s House of Cards, new episodes of quirky sitcom Arrested Development and Lionsgate’s Orange Is The New Black. 
He said that it would spend between 5% and 15% on exclusive and original content.

“HBO and Netflix both spend between $1 billion and $2 billion on content a year. If you are not willing to spend at those levels, it is going to be pretty hard to compete with us or with HBO,” he said.

However, acquisitions and commissions would be based on data from its 24 million subscribers. “We are very much the ‘Moneyball’ of content acquirers,” he added.

Hastings said that its priority next year is global expansion with launches in countries including the UK and Ireland. “There is a huge, global addressable market for Netflix, as long as we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot anymore,” he said. 
This comes as the company announced that its European headquarters would be based in Luxembourg.