Netflix's excuse for mediocre movies library

If you have Netflix, we're sure you're familiar with the feeling the below meme gives you:

The library that the company provides can be seen as average and the company has addressed why this is. They don't think it matters.

Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications conference in New York this week, the company’s head of content Ted Sarandos explained why the streaming giant isn’t that fussed about filling its platform full of top-notch flicks. Apparently, customers just don’t care that much.

According to the Netflix exec, subscribers spend about the same time watching movies on the service regardless of the depth or perceived quality of the movie library.

“No matter what, we end up with about one-third of our watching being movies,” he told the audience.

According to Business Insider, Mr Sarandos used the examples of the United States and Canada as proof of this behaviour.

In Canada Netflix has five major deals with movie studios to use their content while in the US the company basically has none, with the exception of the recently signed Disney deal. Despite US subscribers having far less access to movies from big studios, both countries spend roughly the same proportion of their time on the service watching movies.

Netflix believes that by the time many blockbuster movies make it onto their platform, most of the fans have already seen them.

While he added that Netflix is definitely “happy to have” those sorts of blockbuster movies, having all the big hits won’t necessarily increase participation on the service.

Therefore it makes sense why Netflix isn’t necessarily keen to spend big on movie deals, and why many of its movie catalogues have shrunk over the past two years with numerous top-rated films disappearing.