Imagining Global Video: The Challenge of Netflix

Imagining Global Video:The Challenge of Netflix Ramon Lobato (bio) and Amanda D. Lotz (bio) Netflix has evolved swiftly and significantly over its two-decade history. The service that established itself distributing films on DVD by mail in the United States is now most aptly categorized as a global video service. Yet Netflix's often-claimed "global" status is always a matter of dispute, for film and media scholars as much as for audiences. Because of Netflix's policy of reporting subscriber numbers only in the categories of US or "international" subscribers, it is often difficult to have a sense of how pervasive the service is anywhere other than the United States. Netflix's catalog, cultural status, brand recognition, and market power also vary enormously from country to country. For media scholars, these conditions present empirical and conceptual challenges related to the general problem of how to study a video service that is experienced differently in each country. They also open up possibilities for comparative research grounded in specific contexts to better understand Netflix in its diverse geographic manifestations. This In Focus dossier is the result of one such research experiment. Critically locating Netflix in a global context requires holding two contradictory realities in balance: Netflix is a single company that has direct-to-consumer subscription relationships with 150 million customers worldwide. This makes it arguably more global than any previous screen producer and distributor. But to make any claim about Netflix requires locating it in a particular place—in a country-specific catalog; in a nation-state with particular technological infrastructure, competing and complementary services, and regulatory regimes; and in markets characterized by different audience expectations, preferences, and cultural norms. [End Page 132] Netflix imagines and constructs itself as "global" in a manner different from previous video services. To paraphrase Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay's oft-quoted aphorism that "the answer to the question 'What is television?' very much depends on where you are," the answer to the question "What is Netflix?" clearly also depends on where you are. Given this variation, perhaps the key question to wrestle with is, "What is at stake in imagining Netflix as global?"1 Of course, Netflix was not always global, and Netflix was not always a streaming video service. In the United States it was first a DVD-by-mail service that was far more connected to film than to television. That first version of Netflix is credited with the bankruptcy of Blockbuster Video and the general demise of video rental in the United States. This simple contextual variation often leads to very different assumptions of Netflix among those in the United States compared with those for whom it has been only a streaming service. Even within the emergent sector of internet-distributed video, Netflix has engaged multiple strategies. These steady pivots—from by-mail film rental, to domestic, second-window television distributor, to multinational commissioner of original series and films—feed confused perceptions of the company and its consequence for other video distributors. Netflix is a fascinating object of study because it uses a new distribution technology and a previously uncommon business model, and is disrupting established norms of international video distribution based on temporal and spatial windowing. The trajectory of Netflix is also a most unusual story.2 In an industry reliant on the vertical integration of production and distribution, it established a foothold despite owning no library of content. Recently launched services such as Disney+ are widely regarded as competitors or potential "Netflix killers," but we assert these services are quite different in aim and strategy and are building services to leverage an existing library of intellectual property. Though announcing intentions of "global" availability, plans by others to produce content outside the United States have been limited. Notably, we do not advocate for "Netflix studies" and agree with those critical of the amount of attention paid to this service when so many others exist unexplored. Nothing about Netflix should be accepted as a norm or standard. All the same, Netflix—as a site of analysis—serves as a useful example of some of the affordances of internet-distributed video more recognizable to an international field than any national...