The main takeaway from NetflixSecond quarter earnings are business… good.

correct. The core business of a large media and entertainment company is fine.

Netflix added 5.9 million subscribers in the quarter, a sign that its primary initiative for 2023 — cracking down on password sharing and launching a cheaper $6.99 per month ad category — is bringing in new subscribers. Netflix added 1.2 million subscribers in the US and Canada in the quarter — its biggest regional quarterly gain since 2021.

This is not the story for the rest of the media industry. Disney And Warner Bros. Discovery The year was spent cutting content from streaming services to avoid paying waste and saving on licensing fees. Both companies have laid off thousands of employees over the past 12 months to boost free cash flow. Paramount Global And ComcastBoth NBCUniversal affiliates said that 2023 would be the largest annual loss ever for their broadcast businesses.

Meanwhile, Netflix boosted its free cash flow estimate to $5 billion for the year. Previously, the company had estimated it would have $3.5 billion in revenue, but strikes by actors and writers would reduce spending on content. This means that Netflix will actually get more money than you previously thought.

In the next quarter, Netflix expects subscriber gains to be around 6 million again. The company said revenue will accelerate in the second half of the year as it sees the “full benefits” of its password-sharing campaign and steady growth in its ad-supported plan.

In the past year, Netflix’s rating has dropped 60% as subscriber counts have stalled. The company spent a significant amount of time on earnings conference calls focusing on and explaining its new video game business, which was introduced in mid-2021, to help kick-start a new growth narrative.

This quarter’s shareholder letter barely addresses video games.

Why? Because unlike the rest of the media industry, Netflix doesn’t need a new narrative. The old one still works. The flow is increasing. Stacks of liquidity are on the rise. The announcement excites investors. Netflix has a steady pipeline of international content and a deep library to outpace the extended writers and actors strike.

“The lack of references to video games in the shareholder letter suggests advertising is the shiny thing that dominates most of the company’s focus,” said Ross Bennis, an analyst with research firm Insider Intelligence.

Shares of Netflix fell 5% after hours. That’s more of a symptom of profit-taking after Netflix’s big gains this year (up more than 62% as of Wednesday’s close) than anything to chafe in its preliminary quarterly numbers.

After a sharp fall last year, the company is back on track. And you didn’t even need to switch trains.

Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this article.

Companies and industries have ups and downs. Old media industry in a valley.

The first half of 2023 was a huge disappointment for media executives who wanted this year to be a rebound from a terrible 2022, when a slowdown in subscriber flow slashed ratings. NetflixAnd DisneyAnd Warner Bros. Discovery And Paramount Global to almost half.

Instead, investors are once again excited about Netflix’s future prospects as it cracks down on password sharing, which could lead to tens of millions of new sign-ups. Shares of Netflix have soared in the past five months, outperforming the S&P 500.

Meanwhile, the old players couldn’t get out of their own way.

“When it rains, it rains,” said Rich Greenfield, media analyst at LightShed. “It just keeps getting worse.”

It’s been a bumpy ride for Disney CEO Bob Iger since he returned to lead the company late last year. Disney It recently finished laying off 7,000 employees. Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy stepped down last week. The company is pulling programming from streaming services to save money. Its animation business is in serious trouble, with its latest Pixar movie, “Elemental,” scoring the studio’s lowest opening weekend gross since the original “Toy Story” premiered in 1995. Stock has struggled in the past five months.

Paramount Global It cut its dividend last quarter as broadcast losses peaked this year and a weak advertising market exacerbated the ailing cable network business. Wells Fargo issued an analyst note Friday saying the company’s bull case and bear case are the same: selling for parts. Said Warren Buffett, perhaps the most famous investor in history CNBC said the Paramount streaming show “Basically, it’s not good for business.”

NBCUniversal weathered the storm better, shielded by its parent company, Comcast, which derives its revenue from its cable and wireless assets. The above errors have also been taken advantage of. MSNBC has become no. 1 cable news network this month for the first time in 120 weeks, ousting Fox News amid coverage of former President Donald Trump’s federal indictment. The Super Mario Bros. Universal’s Movie is the year’s biggest box office hit, yet stocks haven’t moved much.

All of this is happening with an expanding strike of Hollywood writers playing out in the background with no end in sight. Writers know that the longer the strike lasts, the greater the pain will be inflicted on the media companies, who will eventually run out of content already written. Zaslav recently gave a commencement speech at Boston University and was drowned out in boos and cheers of “pay your book.”

This week may bring more bad news. Film and TV actors are set to join the writers’ strike unless they reach an agreement with Hollywood studios by Friday.

Greenfield said the beneficiaries of shutting down work in Hollywood will likely be YouTube, TikTok and Netflix, which continue to produce international content not affected by the strike.

Legacy media may get a small respite if advertising jumps back up as the 2024 US presidential campaign heats up. But there is still little evidence that investors will reward media companies simply for cutting costs. There is currently no solid growth narrative for legacy media, and merger prospects are murky as regulators block media-adjacent deals like Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision and Simon & Schuster’s proposed Penguin Random House purchase.

The industry has just concluded its annual advertising gala in Cannes, France. Old media executives still shell out company dollars for a yacht lounging trip and rosé drinking. The background was as beautiful as ever.

But the scene is bleak.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Mark Reid, CEO of WPP, on the state of the advertising market, from Cannes Lions 2023

Disney On Tuesday, it revealed a change in the film’s release calendar, delaying several entries in the Avatar, Marvel, and Star Wars franchises.

The company hasn’t clarified the decisions behind the release date rearrangement, though studios often adjust their schedules for a variety of reasons. The moves come as a writers’ strike has crippled the film and television industry, causing production halts that could affect release schedules.

Many high-profile films and shows have halted production or ended prematurely since the start of the strike. These include Netflix“Stranger Things” for “Stranger Things”appleTV +, “Severance” and BasicCNBC reported in May that the series, “The Evil.”

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

James Cameron’s third “Avatar” movie has been moved from 2024 to December 2025, with the fourth film following in 2029. The company’s release calendar indicates that the fifth installment in the franchise is now set to be in 2031. “Avatar,” released in 2009, and “Avatar: Waterway,” released late last year, are two of the top three highest-grossing films worldwide.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the recently retitled “Captain America: Brave New World” will be delayed from May to July next year, with “Thunderbolts” moving to December 2024, “Blade” moving to February 2025 and “Fantastic Four” now. specific. In May 2025.

The changes also affect the two upcoming Avengers movies in the MCU. “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” has been delayed by a year to May 2026. “Avengers: Secret Wars” won’t be released until May 2027.

Actor Jonathan Majors, who played Kang in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, was arrested on assault charges earlier this year and is said to face more abuse charges. Earlier reports said he denied the allegations through his lawyer, but he was dropped by his old management company. Marvel has been silent on Majors’ case.

After the box office disappointment of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” Disney CEO Bob Iger pondered whether Marvel should prioritize more recent characters instead of continuing to create third and fourth films for established legacy characters.

Disney has also pushed back its planned “Star Wars” movie from December 2025 to May 2026. It’s also added another Star Wars movie to the schedule as well – set for December 2026. Disney has yet to release a Star Wars movie. Movie since “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019.

the Netflix The crackdown on sharing passwords was in its early days in the US, but it appears to have an effect the streamer was looking for – a boost to its subscriber base.

Since alerting its members in late May of its new password-sharing policy, Netflix has had four single days to sign up for US customers since data provider Antenna began tracking the service. In that time, Netflix has seen nearly 100,000 subscriptions a day in two days, according to a report from Antenna.

On May 23, Netflix began sending emails to members that it was changing its sharing guidelines, meaning that accounts would only be shared within the same household.

“Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with – your family,” the company said in an email sent to members since then.

As part of the new policy, members have two options for people who use their passwords outside their home. Either you transfer the profile to someone outside of their household so that person can start a new membership that they pay for themselves, or the member pays an additional fee of $7.99 per month for each person outside their home.

Since the email went live, Netflix has averaged 73,000 daily subscriptions, up 102% from the previous 60-day average, which outpaced the spike in subscriptions during the pandemic’s initial lockdowns, according to Antenna.

Read more: Netflix’s expected password-sharing campaign is putting college students on edge

Streaming services like Netflix saw a significant increase in subscribers in the early days of the pandemic when consumers were at home during lockdowns. However, this subscriber growth slowed in the following years.

In 2022, Netflix began to experience stagnant subscriber growth, and like other media companies, it began looking for ways to increase revenue. In addition to cracking down on password sharing, Netflix has also introduced a cheaper, ad-supported tier.

While Netflix stock took a hit after reporting its first subscriber loss in a decade last year, it has since rebounded with the introduction of password-sharing guidelines and ad-supported streaming. Its stock hit a 52-week high on Friday, and is up more than 40% since the start of the year.

The company said more than 100 million households subscribe to the accounts — about 43% of its global user base — which affects its ability to monetize new content.

Netflix began rolling out its password sharing guidelines to international markets earlier this year. It delayed its crackdown on password sharing in the US from the first quarter to the second quarter.

Hollywood producers have a tentative deal with movie and TV directors, but that doesn’t mean we should expect surprising writers’ strike decisions or talks with the actors’ union.

On Sunday, the Directors Guild of America and the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance provisionally agreed to a three-year contract that would provide the 19,000-member union with pay and benefit gains, increased global broadcast residuals and protections against the use of artificial intelligence.

Related investment news

The DGA contract is set to expire on June 30. The union will present the proposal to its members on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America is entering the second month of its strike. Likewise, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are on the verge of authorizing a possible strike should negotiations falter. Those talks begin on Wednesday.

The WGA has been on strike since May 2, shutting down dozens of TV and film productions as talks with producers stall.

actually Netflix The start of production for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things has been postponed. Warner Bros. discovery “Game of Thrones” prequel “Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Night of the Hedge” locked her writers’ room, and Disney And Marvel’s Thunderbolts and Blade films have paused production.

During the recent writers’ strike in 2007 and 2008, which lasted 100 days, the studio’s deal with the DGA pushed writers back to the negotiating table. That may not be the case this time around, though.

“We congratulate the DGA Negotiation Committee for obtaining a deal that they will recommend to their National Council for approval and which they will then presumably send to their members for ratification,” the WGA Negotiation Committee wrote in a note to members on Sunday.

The committee said it would not comment on the deal points of the new DGA contract and noted that its negotiating positions remain the same.

“Last week we sent out an email about how AMPTP’s divide-and-conquer strategy didn’t work this time,” the memo read. “AMPTP will not be able to negotiate a book deal with anyone but us.”

The committee also said it stands in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA during the completion of the strike vote on Monday.

Representatives for SAG-AFTRA did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The WGA memo mirrors comments made by WGA negotiator Chris Keyser on Friday, when he provided a public update a month after the strike via YouTube.

“Any agreement that puts this city back in business goes directly through the WGA, and there’s no way around that,” he said.

Keyser also expressed that the WGA strike was indeed “extremely effective in harming businesses”, noting that the work stoppage, along with the public picketing, demonstrated the union’s determination to get “the contract we deserve”.

In the DGA agreement, managers received pay increases starting at 5% in the first year, an increase in tailings from the flow and a guarantee that AI could not replace the duties performed by members.

Artificial intelligence has been a major concern for writers’ and actors’ unions, who see their jobs as particularly vulnerable to this new technology.

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA are both seeking protection against the use of artificial intelligence in their negotiations, as well as increased compensation for streaming content. The WGA is also seeking minimum staff for television writers’ rooms and more competitive minimum payments for the work.

WGA is less concerned about being replaced by AI systems and more concerned that production companies will exploit these technological tools to cut writers’ salaries.

SAG-AFTRA has acknowledged that AI technology can have its benefits in the industry, but wants to ensure that any use of AI to duplicate an actor or create a new performance is done with the consent and payment of the actor. The Syndicate has similar guardrails when it comes to taking computer-generated images.

Indeed, some performers, such as James Earl Jones, have already agreed to have their voices reproduced for posthumous use. Jones, 91, voiced Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise and has sought to exit the role. Jones was compensated and technology was used to bring Vader’s iconic voice to Disney+’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

The Actors Guild has also been vocal about its negotiations for the benefit of all of its members, not just the big stars. Health coverage, compensation and waste are top priorities for tens of thousands of workers.

SAG-AFTRA’s vote for permission to strike ends Monday at 8 p.m. ET.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance.

Netflix It’s set to report first-quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday, and investors will be paying close attention to its subscriber numbers, especially for the ad category it supports.

Although Netflix will no longer provide subscriber guidance, it will continue to report the total number of users, both in the US and globally, each quarter.

Here’s what Wall Street expects, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv:

• Earnings per share: Expected $2.86
• he won: $8.18 billion expected

On Tuesday, Netflix said goodbye to what it started – a DVD mailer company, sending discs in red envelopes to customers. The company’s co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, said in a blog post that it would finally wind up its DVD business, which “continues to shrink.”

A year ago, Netflix reported its first subscriber loss in a decade, sending its shares plummeting, as well as those of its media peers. The results prompted Netflix and its streaming competitors to focus on profits over subscriber numbers.

The results of the new ad-supported level in the country will be our top priority. Last November, Netflix unveiled its cheapest tier with commercials, which costs $6.99 per month. The ad-supported tier came shortly after losing subscribers as the competition in streaming intensified.

Sarandos recently said that the company will likely offer several ad-supported tiers in the future.

Another focus for Wall Street will be Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing. Late last year, the company said it would begin implementing measures to get people who borrow from other accounts to create their own.

The company said more than 100 million households subscribe to the accounts, or about 43% of its global user base. Netflix said that affected its ability to invest in new content. Both the ad-supported option and the crackdown on password sharing are intended to increase revenue.

In February, Netflix outlined password sharing guidelines for four countries: New Zealand, Canada, Portugal, and Spain. The company said it will require users in those countries to select a “primary location” for their accounts, and allow users to create up to two “sub-accounts” for those who don’t live in their home base for an additional fee.

The company has yet to provide guidance on password sharing for the United States, although it is expected to do so this year.

humble as it may be, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav this week proved he’s definitely a name-dropper.

Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled its new streaming service on Wednesday, which includes a host of shows from HBO Max and Discovery+. It will be released on May 23 in the US, later this year in Latin America, and in the rest of the world in 2024. It will be called Max — sans HBO.

On a surface level, Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to ditch the HBO Max name is a logical marketing choice. In depth, it begins to feel like a microcosm of the existential tension that lies at the heart of the company – and the media industry more broadly.

The company is trying to compete with Netflix And Disney Being the winner of the live stream, while at the same time pushing a message of financial discipline that lowers the priority of your streaming subscriber additions. It’s a matter of quality versus quantity, and Warner Bros. Discovery tries to play both sides.

said JB Perrette, the company’s president of broadcasting, during a presentation presenting Max on Wednesday in Burbank, Calif.

Perrett on Wednesday explained why Warner Bros. Discovery has removed the HBO part of the name from the new service. He said HBO is synonymous with adult entertainment, and Max will tend to offer programming for children and families.

“We all love HBO,” Perrett said. “It’s a brand built over five decades to be a trendsetter in adult entertainment. But it’s not exactly a place where parents can easily drop their kids off. Not surprisingly, the category hasn’t met true potential on HBO Max.”

Warner Bros. Discovery executives felt that the HBO name actually limited the streaming service’s audience because it intimidated potential audiences. They also felt that the HBO brand could be diluted by the influx of reality TV shows on Discovery that are set to join the platform, such as “Dr. for conversation over the water cooler in the office.”

“HBO is not television. HBO is HBO. It has to stay that way,” Perrett said at the event. “We would not drive it to its breaking point by forcing it to assume the full scope of this new content proposition had we kept the name in the service brand. By doing so, we will upgrade and better showcase our unrivaled suite of other content and branding services that will be key to expanding The scope of attractiveness of this improved product.

The company’s logic is rational. HBO appeals to a certain audience, but it also doesn’t appeal to a certain audience. HBO fans aren’t going to unsubscribe from the service in response to Max’s name, but some folks who used to be intimidated by HBO may now just subscribe to the adult brand due to the flood of obvious HBO content coming to the service.

When HBO Max initially launched, executives at AT&T and WarnerMedia assured subscribers that this new app was, first and foremost, the home of HBO. Now, about 80 million subscribers later, this point is less important. Those who want HBO already know where to find it, and HBO Max will simply switch to Max on most platforms.

Broadcasting is entering its “teenage” years, Perrett said, and Max as a name makes more sense to continue adding subscribers globally in a world of declining growth.

That would be the end of the story if Warner Bros. did. The stated goal for Discovery was to increase (no pun intended) the number of subscribers who signed up for the Max.

That was every media company’s goal when Zaslav agreed to merge Discovery with WarnerMedia in 2021. But according to Zaslav, that’s no longer a priority.

“I’d rather have 100 million subscribers or 150 million subscribers and be really profitable than try to scale to get too many and end up losing money,” Zaslav told CNBC’s Julia Burstein after the presentation on Wednesday. “We take a look at what people are watching on Max and we can see exactly what they like and don’t like. And some of the things they don’t watch, we can put on AVOD for free.” [advertising-supported video on demand] And some of the things they don’t watch, we can keep non-exclusively on Max, but we can also sell to others.”

“We’re relentlessly focused on creating great content and monetizing in every way we can,” he said.

With a new broadcast strategy — and Max at the center — Warner Bros. Discovery hedges its bets.

The company maintains Discovery+ for customers who are happy to pay $5 or $7 just for Discovery programming. Perrett said the company “doesn’t want to leave any lucrative subscribers behind.”

Zaslav also hinted at Warner Bros. The free, ad-supported Discovery service, which the company said is coming later this year.

Warner Bros. Discovery could have worked for HBO Max, too. For customers who wanted both Discovery+ and HBO Max, it could have offered a bundle at a discount. That’s been the strategy for Disney, which offers bundled ways to mix and match Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+.

Instead, the company has loaded up one service with everything it has, which may also eventually include some news from CNN and sports like NBA or NHL games. Zaslav said Wednesday that he would get more details on that “in the coming months”. Don’t forget, Zaslav killed CNN+ as a standalone broadcast option last year after about a month in existence.

Warner Bros. Discovery is building the Max as a one-size-fits-all option that has a scale to go around in an ever-increasingly fast post-cable world.

But Zaslav also tells investors it’s okay to limit Max’s growth. It is more important for him to make money than to compete with Disney and Netflix to become the largest streaming operator in the world.

It’s a delicate balance: DisneyAnd Paramount Global, ComcastNBCUniversal and even Netflix They are all fighting the same forces. Investors have shifted the spur-of-the-moment growth-at-all-costs narrative in the past year, halving the valuations of many media and entertainment companies.

What is happening now is, in essence, a hedge. The media industry knows that broadcasting is the future, but growth has slowed. Zaslav defended the value of the traditional pay-TV package while criticizing the former WarnerMedia system’s profligate spending on broadcasting. He’s trying to give investors a new reason to get excited about Warner Bros. Discovery. That message, Zaslav hopes, is to generate free cash flow.

“In the end, I’m the free cash flow guy,” Zaslav said Wednesday. “We want great talent, but in the end, if we don’t make sign-up money, if we don’t have any ARPU… [average revenue per user]We don’t help ourselves and we don’t help shareholders.”

There are some signs that he could be on to something. Warner Bros. Discovery shares are up nearly 50% this year after falling nearly 60% last year.

But when you take a two-part name — HBO and Max — and keep just Max, the implication is “big” over “quality.”

That was the AT&T message. It wasn’t Zaslav’s message yet.

WATCH: The full CNBC interview with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav

Disclosure: CNBC’s parent Comcast owns NBCUniversal and co-owns Hulu.

Sunday’s Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards may not take a bump at the box office for taking home the biggest prize of the night.

It’s part of the evolution of Hollywood. The Covid pandemic and the advent of streaming have fundamentally changed the industry. The result was a small increase in the box office at the time of nominations and a significant increase in the order flow.

From nominations in late January through Wednesday, this year’s Top 10 Picture nominees added $82 million in domestic box office sales, of which $71 million came from “Avatar: The Way of Water.” (“The Way of Water” grossed over $670 million in North America.)

For comparison, in 2020, The Nominees brought in about $201 million at the domestic box office after being nominated in mid-January, according to Comscore data. The Oscars are awarded in February. 9 that year, weeks before covid was declared a pandemic and the lockdown began.

“Many of the contenders this year originated from earlier in the release calendar and have therefore been ‘played’ in terms of their ability to reap the Oscar dollar in cinemas,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

In the past, films like “1917,” “Hidden Figures,” and “Silver Linings Playbook”—which were only nominated for the award—have earned 50% or more of domestic box office revenue after receiving a nod, according to data from Comscore. For 2014’s American Sniper, 99% of its box office ticket sales came after it was nominated, which is $346 million.

This year, all but one of the Best Picture nominees saw less than 13% post-nomination box office revenue. One of the smaller films to win the top prize, “Woman Talking,” took in 77% of its revenue after nominations, or about $3.9 million, according to comScore data.

“The Oscars bump is not a new phenomenon,” said Brandon Katz, industry strategist at Parrot Analytics. “For decades, we’ve seen contenders get additional box office ticket sales once Picture nominations are announced. But what’s changed recently, particularly as the Oscars have taken place a month later than usual in recent years and have been impacted by Covid, is a gushing bump.” .

Parrot Analytics determined that the top 10 photo nominees saw an average audience demand increase of 21% in the week after they received their coveted nomination. This measure of demand is calculated by looking at consumption, including hacking, social media posts and interactions, watching social videos, and online searches on sites like IMDb and Wikipedia.

Much of that demand is likely to manifest in streaming. Only six of the top 10 nominees for the picture released comparable box office data in the week after the nominations were published.

“Banshees of Inisherin” saw the biggest rise between the week before the nominations and the weeks after, with ticket sales jumping 381%. However, this is a jump from $73,000 in box office receipts to $352,000.

Over that weekend, fellow nominees “Everything Everywhere at Once,” “Fabelmans,” “Tarr,” “Triangle of Sorrow,” and “Women’s Talking,” all had ticket sales of under $1 million despite receiving huge highs. in audience visits.

And the only “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which saw ticket sales drop 21% over the weekend after nominations, grossed more than $1 million — bringing in $15.9 million in domestic receipts.

The striking difference has a lot to do with when these movies were released, their availability on streaming platforms and the genres of the movies.

The blockbuster “Waterway” was in its sixth week in theaters and was building momentum at the box office, while “Everything Everywhere at Once” made its return to the big screen after a nearly six-month hiatus from theaters.

Notably, by the time the nominations were revealed, “everything everywhere at once” had already been in the general zeitgeist for nearly a full year. The movie will be released in late March 2022.

Traditionally, Oscar bait films are shown in the last quarter of the year, with the majority hitting cinemas in November and December. As for this year’s nominees, only three made their debuts over the last two months of last year.

In the past, the Oscars were hosted in February, so even those films released in October might still have been shown exclusively in theaters if the pandemic hadn’t pushed the event to March.

However, this year, at the time of the nominations in late January, eight of the ten films nominated for Best Picture were available on streaming. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, Katz said.

“The last couple of years, everyone said: movie theaters vs. streaming. I’ve never seen it like this,” Katz said. “I don’t necessarily think the data supports that. I actually think these two methods can be additive and complementary rather than mutually exclusive.”

Katz noted that some films get a box office boost from the nomination, but the availability of titles on streaming can build buzz and momentum during the latter part of the voting period.

“Obviously, it’s hard to argue with the dollar sign and box office numbers,” said Wade Payson Denny, an analyst with Parrot Analytics. “But that’s just one part of the equation nowadays. Live streaming plays a huge role.”

“All Quiet on the Western Front” had the biggest spike in demand, up 59% in the week after it was nominated for Best Picture. The film ran for a limited time in theaters, just long enough to spark Oscar contention, before going home to the Netflix. The fact that the movie was only available during streaming is probably why it experienced the biggest jump in demand.

This also explains why the film has no box office data.

On the other end of the spectrum, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” the biggest box office smashes of 2022, saw demand drop.

For Maverick, there will likely be a drop in demand because the movie has been in the open since May and has been available for streaming since late December. “Waterway” is still in theaters and won’t be available for streaming until the end of this month. Those who wanted to watch these movies had plenty of time to do so or watched them recently, and didn’t feel the need to watch them again or pirate them.

“The telecast on Sunday will be a three-hour commercial in addition to showing films and shows that are considered the most popular of the year,” Dergarabedian said. “This should translate into a growing desire among viewers to seek out these films at home.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal distributed “1917” and “The Fablemans”.

Correction: This article has been updated to show that in 2020, the nominees made about $201 million at the domestic box office after their nomination in mid-January.

Netflix On Wednesday it outlined its long-awaited password sharing guidelines, starting with users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain, marking the latest step in the company’s Telegram campaign.

The streaming company said users in those countries will be asked to set a “primary location” for their Netflix accounts. They can create two “sub-accounts” for users who do not live in that household, for a monthly fee for each additional user: $7.99 CAD in Canada, $7.99 NZD in New Zealand, €3.99 in Portugal and €5.99 in Spain.

“Today, more than 100 million households participate in the accounts — which affects our ability to invest in great new TV shows and movies,” said Qingye Long, the company’s director of product innovation.

Netflix is ​​testing its password sharing restrictions outside the US before it rolls out domestically in March. The price in Canada can predict what you’ll eventually pay for the program’s US debut.

The changes announced Wednesday will be rolled out immediately, along with a new “Manage access and devices” page that will allow users to take care of who has access to their accounts.

Users who wish to save additional monthly fees for “sub-accounts” can transfer profiles to a new account. Transferred profiles will retain all of their personal recommendations and viewing history from the original account.

Netflix said it plans to revisit and improve the new account management page based on user feedback.

The user guidance comes after the operator posted a huge subscriber numbers win in the fourth quarter and announced that former CEO Reed Hastings would be stepping down.

The company announced last fall that it would limit password sharing as subscriber growth stalled in the US and Canada region.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct that Netflix users will pay a monthly fee for a Sub Account. An earlier version got the cost structure wrong.