Screentime

Netflix Cuts Over 100 Shows In Major Programming Shift

After years of spending more on new shows, the company is finally shrinking how much new it has to offer.

Ted Sarandos, president and co-chief executive office of Netflix Inc., during the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. The event gathers moguls, celebrities, and entrepreneurs to discuss the future of cinema, the boom in streaming audio and video, the latest sports and gaming experiences, and the potential impact of artificial intelligence.Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg

Over the last 18 months, we have grown accustomed to hearing about cuts at almost every major media company. Walt Disney Co. has fired thousands of employees and trimmed billions from its budget. Warner Bros. Discovery has done the same, albeit at a smaller scale.

This purge in many ways started with Netflix Inc., which lost customers in the first half of 2022. But while its peers have talked about how much they would cut back on programming, Netflix has not. It cut some staff and stopped growing its budget, but it didn’t really do a big purge.