Ted Sarandos says ‘Baby Reindeer’ was helped by Netflix’s algorithm

While Netflix has expanded the type of programming it offers, recently venturing into live sports and other events, co-CEO Ted Sarandos noted in a new interview that the news isn’t specific to Netflix.

“We don’t do breaking news and that kind of thing, because I think there are too many other outlets for that. People don’t look to us for that,” Sarandos said. TIt is the New York Times In a wide-ranging interview broadcast online on Saturday when asked what is not right for Netflix, however, the CEO, whose company a year ago launched an advertising tier, said in the same answer that he is open to new things: I don’t think so. “There’s a clear answer. Because the best version of something might work really well for Netflix but hasn’t worked yet.”

Last week, after its first live Netflix presentation, CNN acknowledged that despite streaming’s forays into different types of content, it still lacks live or pre-recorded news programming and doesn’t seem interested in changing that.

“Entertainment platforms are not interested in news,” an anonymous agent told CNN. “Their audience doesn’t want that and it can be polarizing. It’s not worth it to them.”

Elsewhere in times In the interview, Sarandos talked about the streamer’s recent British hit, Reindeer babyWhich suggests that its popularity is at least partly due to the Netflix algorithm.

“There was a time when there was such a thing Reindeer baby It won’t even be seen in the US. “If that happens, it will be shown on PBS all at once,” Sarandos said. It’s very, very big in the UK, and in that way that Netflix does it, it gets picked up in the algorithm and it starts offering more and more, because when something gets that big in one country, there’s probably a lot of audience for it outside of that country. It has had huge success all over the world.

Beyond that, Sarandos has spoken of his belief that international series can work in the United States without having to be tailored for an American audience.

“You don’t have to adapt your storytelling to America in order for it to work. If your movie, if your movie works, if your TV series works in your home country, it has to be very authentic. “And I think what international audiences pick up on is that authenticity. When you try to design something for travel, no one really likes it. I can’t think of anything we’ve done that was designed for travel but actually traveled.

Last week, Netflix released its list of the most-watched series and movies for the second half of 2023, with international shows scoring highly on its list of most-watched series (measured by the streamer’s metric (total hours watched divided by hours of playback time). Four of the top six shows originated outside the United States, including the German series Dear childthe third batch from France Lupine And British shows Who is Erin Carter? And Sex education Season four. Its most prominent series for the second half of 2023, one pieceIt is a US-Japanese co-production.

Throughout the interview, Sarandos emphasized Netflix’s “consumer view of quality,” praising Tom Brady’s live-action roast for being a hot topic of discussion, and highlighting the strong performance of its “amazing” romantic comedy series by Lindsay Lohan Irish Desiredespite loving rom-coms times A reporter makes a face in the movie.

“I’m relying on the numbers, how many people are watching it. I mean people are watching the whole thing. People generally turn off things they don’t like in this on-demand world,” Sarandos said. Irish Desire.

Fans of such films, says a Times correspondent, are “very committed to seeing things to the bitter end.”

However, Sarandos feels Irish Desire It has its place, being compared to other TV shows and movies by saying it’s at the “high end of the Hallmark scale” but “not at the middle end of the (Searchlight) scale.”

In the second part of the interview, incidentally, where Sarandos mentioned the topic of “breaking news,” he again praised the breadth of the streamers’ library and how a project that resonates with a large audience indicates it is a “quality” TV show or movie.

Referring to Irish Desire Again, Sarandos said: “We all have these great contradictions even within ourselves. I love the crownAnd I love Is it a cake? And I love them both, it doesn’t make any sense! When I think about it and think, what are we trying to do? We try to make great films. We define quality from the audience’s point of view. So, if the audience likes the movie, that’s great. This is quality. Irish Wish may not have satisfied you, but 65 million people saw this movie. It’s a huge hit, and people love it. Critics and reviews — it’s great. We want to please everyone. But sometimes, the films we make aren’t made for critics. But for the audience that loves it, it loves it.”

As for what he’s worried about in the future, Sarandos said he’s mostly worried about “internal execution.”

“It’s a very different company with 270 million subscribers worldwide than it was when I joined the 175,000 subscribers who get DVDs in the United States,” he said. “So how do you develop the company, how do you not get too nostalgic, how do you not get too romantic about the past. Movies, games, television, stand-up comedy – all of these things are real art forms. Otherwise it would only take an hour, and then I would be very worried about TikTok.” .