The News

Netflix Still Piling Up Viewers and Big Programming Bills 

In this Friday, Jan. 17, 2014, file photo, a person displays Netflix on a tablet in North Andover, Massachusetts. Amazon is taking on Netflix and Hulu with a stand-alone video streaming service. Starting the week of April 18, 2016, customers can pay $8.99 a month to watch Amazon’s Prime video streaming service. Previously, the only way to watch Prime videos was to pay $99 a year for Prime membership, which includes free two-day shipping on items sold by the site. The video-only option won’t come with any free shipping perks. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

SAN FRANCISCO – Netflix is pulling in new viewers and award nominations in droves. But the online video service has a long-term problem: its acclaimed programming line-up is costing far more money than what subscribers pay for it.

That hasn’t been a big issue so far. Investors have been willing to accept scant profits in exchange for robust subscriber growth.


Netflix announced Monday that it added 5.2 million subscribers in the April-June quarter. That’s the largest increase ever during the period, which has always been the company’s slowest time of year.

The company now has 104 million subscribers worldwide. But the success hasn’t come cheaply.

Netflix is locked into contracts requiring it to pay more than $13 billion for programming during the next three years.