Netflix Wants to Become HBO Before HBO Becomes Netflix
Shelly Palmer
We’ve long know that Netflix is ambitious, striving to make its own original content when it can. But now the company had made its intentions clear: it isn’t just keeping up with the big boy cable networks—it plans to beat them at their own game. In a long and thoughtful profile of Netflix in GQ, the streaming company’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos speaks out about what the future holds for the firm. He suggests Netflix must be making at least five new shows a year in order to outdo the big boys: “The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” With $300 million in his back pocket to spend on original programming—which has already allowed projects like House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and a new season of Arrested Development to come to fruition—he certainly has the means.
