THE STORY OF NETFLIX

All of the cable streaming channels are charging more and more, or asking you to pay a premium if you don't want to watch commercials.  They are also cracking down on password sharing.  

But today I will focus on Netflix, which began in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail movie rental service.  

• Silicon Valley carpoolers, Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings, with Patty McCord also in the car, admired Amazon and their large category of items selling on the internet.  

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  During those days, VHS was the dominant mode, but they heard that DVDs, smaller, less delicate and cheaper, were coming, so they took this path.
• Jeff Bezos of Amazon initially offered to acquire Netflix, but Randolph and Hastings persevered, changing from from cost/rental to a monthly subscription for unlimited rentals without due dates or shipping.

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  Then came the dot.com bubble, hurting their company, so they tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster, which did not think much of those prospects.
• Patty McCord was also involved, and here she indicates how they destroyed Blockbuster.  She also wrote Powerful.

• Netflix went public in 2002 at $15/share.

• Currently sells for $490.51.
• If you bought 10,000 shares, you would today have $5.4 million.

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  2003:  made its first profit the following year.
• In 1997, only 925 films were on DVD, exploding to 35,000 in 2005.
• Blockbuster began its own DVD rental service in 2004, but Netflix filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Blockbuster, which was eventually settled.
• 2007: Netflix launched a streaming media service, introducing video on demand through the internet with only 1000 films, although by that year 70,000 were available on DVD.  But even though internet downloading was slow, the company delivered its billionth copy that year.
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  This gets complicated, but also in 2007 Netflix tried to build a Netflix Player to be played directly on a television set rather than computer.  This failed, but Roku independently spun off.
• Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 with a billion dollar debt.
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  In 2011 Netflix charged $7.99/month for their streaming service.  Also expanded service to Europe.  That year began Netflix's original content development with House of Cards.
• 2015:  Netflix expanded into Oceania and the Orient.
• In 2017 began to connect to airline flights.
• 2018: earned the most Emmy nominations of any network with 112, and in 2021  earned the most Academy award nominations with 36, winning 7 Oscars.  Also began to offer games through a television remote control.
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  In 2021, Squid Game drew more than 111 million viewers.  Mobile games were launched.
• 2022: indicated that 60% of its subscribers had watched a Korean drama.
• Discontinued DVD-by-mail service in 2022, and those who had them at the end could keep them.  Distributed 5 billion DVD's in its lifetime.
• Now available in every country except for China, North Korea, Crimea, Syria and Russia.
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  They are working on password sharing by cost.
• Up to 238 million subscribers.
• In 2018 and 2019, produced more than 600 original shows, and this rate is expanding.
• Won 6 Academy Awards in 2023.
• Depending on what you want, can cost your from $7 to $23/month.  Considering just one movie out with popcorn can cost you more than $20, Netflix is a bargain.  I'll never be able to watch all of what I want even if they stopped creating new stuff.

If I had to pick one best Netflix genre, it would be those Korean series.  South Korea has in the past decade or two made the most progress in the world.  From electronics to kitchen appliances to shipbuilding to automobiles, their economic transformation has been phenomenol.  I remember first visiting that country in the 1980's, and they had not yet totally recovered from the Korean War.  Go to Seoul and Busan today, and the change is startling.  More than anything else, perhaps, has been in entertainment, from BTS to films to those series appearing on Netflix.

MovieWeb ranks the best Korean series.  Here is the top 20:

• #1  The World of the Married (2020), no Rotten Tomatoes review.  Revenge.
• #2  Sky Castle (2018), no RT review.  Turbulence in the upper class.  Saw this...good.

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  #3  Snowdrop (2021), RT ?/98.  Starring Jisoo (from Blackpink) and Jung Hae-in.
• #4  Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022), RT 100/94.  Saw this...fabulous, waiting for season 2.
• #5 Vincenzo (2021), RT ?/93).  Saw this, and wow.  20 episodes, each 1.5 hours long, or an investment of 30 hours.
• #6  Crash Landing on You (2019), RT 100/97.  Saw this, excellent.  Season 2?  Ten episodes, each 70-110 minutes.
• You can read the rest.

MovieWeb also ranks their best movies, and chances are you never heard of them.  Written this year, here is the top ten...and in 2020 Parasite (Rotten Tomatoes:  99/90) won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  It failed to make this list.

• #1  Memories of Murder (2003), by Boon Joon-ho, about a serial killer.  Rotten Tomatoes:  95/93.
• #2  Old Boy, RT (2017), RT: 83/94.  One reviewer quote:  Both brutal and lyrical, writer-director Park Chan-wook's existential nail-biter has torture scenes that will have you avoiding dentists, sushi bars and badly appointed hotel rooms.  April 15, 2013 | Rating: 5/5 | Full Review…
• #3  I Saw the Devil (2011), RT: 81/87.  Another serial killer film.

Netflix will spend $2.5 billion on South Korean film and TV productions over the next four years.  The Glory, released a year ago with 16 episodes, was the third most watched show during the first six months of 2023, with over 622 million hours of viewership. Received 88/94 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.  To quote:  Years after surviving horrific abuse in high school, a woman puts an elaborate revenge scheme in motion to make the perpetrators pay for their crimes.  Her performance was....disturbing.  Bullying and school violence are plagues in the country.

Finally, Time magazine has a list of the 10 Best Korean Dramas (meaning series) of 2023 on Netflix, but in no particular order.

• The Glory is in this list.
• I only began to watch Castaway Diva, and I'll continue, although only got a 76 audience rating.  Stars Park Eun-bin (right), from her Extraordinary Attorney Woo fame.  Didn't recognize her in this new role because she was so good as an autistic attorney in her earlier performance.
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  I'll mention one more, Dr. Cha, for it has been highly recommended to me.
• Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 86/91.
• 16 episodes.

For two decades, Cha Jeong-suk (played by Uhm Jung-hwa), a medical school graduate, put her career on hold after getting pregnant in order to become a devoted housewife supporting her spouse, mother-in-law, and children. But after being diagnosed with acute liver failure, Cha sees the selfishness of her family—culminating with her husband’s eventual refusal to be her liver donor. She then decides to stop being a doormat and applies to be a first-year medical resident in her late 40s. Doctor Cha is an entertaining 16-episode series on finding newfound independence and meaning in life as one ages.

• You can read about the other series.

15 Craigside rainbow yesterday.

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