Students of boom, bust and bubbles might like to keep a wary eye on Netflix, which the LA Times now describes as “bleeding cash” with $20.5bn in long-term debt. The last quarter was a record negative – $608m piled on the debt mountain – and Netflix insouciantly forecasts negative free cash flow for years to come.
Does it matter? Not, in Wall Street wisdom, while the streaming service builds ever more subscribers, now 104 million and rising. But what, pray, happens if subscriptions stall? If the going gets tougher as new streams flow?
Just raise your eyes and look for a few small signs. Amazon, a prime competitor, has just outbid Sky to stream the ATP top men’s tennis circuit. The BBC, for heaven’s sake, has outbid Sky for the PGA golf tournament. Sky and BT have some heavy duty slogging and paying to do as football returns.
The content race is getting tighter. Big spenders who didn’t have to worry five years ago are gritting their teeth, and binge viewers (in the latest Ofcom report) are consuming series six episodes at a time. I’m forever blowing bubbles? Well, good luck with that.
Netflix said the initial LA Times story had inaccurately calculated Netflix’s debt at $20bn “by counting our streaming obligations (ie our content contracts with studios) of $15.7bn as debt, which it isn’t. We have total gross debt of $4.8bn vs. our equity market value of about $75bn. The $15.7bn accounts for future content expenses that roll through the income statement over time. Every broadcaster, cable network and streamer that has licensing agreements uses the same structure. As a point of reference, Disney/ESPN has $49bn in similar commitments for sports contracts.”
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This article was amended on 8 August 2017 to clarify that the $20.5bn figure is long-term debt and to add a statement from Netflix.
