Netflix’s Hastings: no to sport and news, slim prospects in China

Netflix boss Reed Hastings is not interested in adding sport and news to the SVOD company’s content line-up and sees little prospect in the near term in breaking into China.

Interviewed by UK newspaper The Guardian, Hastings said that “every incremental million dollars” the company spends will be dedicated to strengthening its line-up of TV shows and movies, and said that he was not interested in developing sports and news content.

Hastings said that the US$6 billion (€5.4 billion) Netflix has budgeted for content was small relative to the total spent by the industry globally, and reiterated that he plans to spend more on original content.

Hastings also said that it appeared, following the shutting down of Disney’s movie service in the country, that the Chinese government “just doesn’t want the foreign content distribution”. He said that it remained possible that an opportunity might emerge in China “someday in the future” however.

Hastings told The Guardian that it was important to focus on the long term prospects of the company rather than “worrying over one quarter” following Netflix’s less-then-stellar Q2 results and the market reaction to them.