The Netflix Ax Is Coming as Stock Languishes
For weeks there’s been a steady drumbeat near the halls of power at Netflix over the question of rightsizing, job cuts and a restructure ahead of its third quarter earnings disclosure on October 20. While the streaming giant still lords over its rivals in the subscription space and co-chiefs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters command an annual content spending budget of $20 billion, Wall Street arguably has viewed this as an off year for Netflix. Once a high-flying tech growth story, the nearly 30-year-old company is now the studio establishment as all the attention and investment has gone to AI bets in public markets. The company also has had to fight off an ever-growing YouTube, which is increasingly becoming the dominant platform on TV screens in addition to its video lead on mobile devices. With stock down 20 percent year to date, Sarandos and Peters may unveil a shake up that could be geared in part to showing the Street that it’s ready to accelerate growth in the post-Streaming Wars economy. In the last several …
