Netflix chilled: The number one streamer is besieged by negative narratives and scepticism

Netflix may have won the so-called streaming wars and stamped its dominant position all over everyone’s home screens, but that story is not so rosey anymore.

In recent months, Netflix has been besieged by a raft of negative narratives – its stock price is roughly half of what it was a year ago, audiences are abandoning its shows in their second seasons, the obvious attempts to copy YouTube – and it’s all centred on one main question: has the shine come off the industry’s number one player?

Last week, Netflix announced its second quarter revenues were up 13.4 per cent year-on-year, largely in line with Wall Street expectations, but its share price took a 9 per cent tumble in after-hours trading.

That reflects the general scepticism around the company right now, which wasn’t helped by Netflix’s failed attempt to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. By trying to buy such a large studio, some investors felt that reflected Netflix’s era of robust organic growth was over.

Its share price began its fall when Netflix started to pursue Warner Bros, not when it was eventually gazumped by Paramount, and despite a small gain when the deal fell through, that price still hasn’t recovered.

The more revealing conversation from its recent earnings report wasn’t in its revenue or its P&L, but its twice-yearly What We Watched document, which outlines the streamer’s most popular series and movies in the previous six months.

The company said that it will no longer release them at the half-year, and from here on in, will share them annually. When a business dialling back on transparency, it’s usually because they don’t want you looking too hard.

It must be noted, its rivals rarely share any streaming viewing figures, sometimes vague declarations such as “most watched new drama ever”.

At the start of 2025, Netflix stopped revealing its subscriber numbers. At the time, that turnaround in transparency led to speculation that its subscriber growth in high-value markets had either slowed, plateaued or was about to decline.

In its spin, Netflix said the statistic which actually reflected customer satisfaction, and therefore acquisition and retention, was engagement, otherwise known as time spent.

So then, what to make of the streamer’s backflip on releasing its half-yearly What We Watched reports, the most visible form of that favoured metric, and will instead focus on financial performance?

Well, it’s because engagement is down, so that’s no longer a good news story.

For the six months to June, the most watched series on Netflix was crime thriller His & Hers which was viewed by 104 million accounts, followed by the fourth season of Bridgerton (100m), I Will Find You (63m), Stranger Things 5 (55m, but the bulk of its viewership was in the previous six months), Run Away (50m), Teach You a Lesson (48m), One Piece season two (47m), Man on Fire season one (40m), Ms Rachel season one (37m) and The Night Agent season three (36m).

The question isn’t how many people watched Netflix’s most-viewed series, His & Hers (the answer is right there), but how many people remember His & Hers? It starred Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal as an estranged couple who end up separately investigating a murder in a small town.

It was… stupid.

It’s not a series that anyone will remember let alone remember fondly in five years’ time. For all those accounts that watched it, it was likely a set-and-forget show that ran in the background as people scrolled their phone or re-alphabetised their bookshelves.

His & Hers had little cultural impact and was barely a blip in the discourse. Google trends data revealed that Bridgerton, which released its fourth season three weeks later, had four times as much search traffic as His & Hers.

And, we’re assuming most of the searches for His & Hers was for explainers to unpack its truly ridiculous ending. Thompson and Bernthal are first rate actors, watching them in this make you embarrassed for them.

That top 10 list encapsulates Netflix’s problem.

You’ve got a dumb number one, three shows with latent buzz (Bridgerton, Stranger Things and One Piece), two Harlan Cobden thrillers so generic you have to look up their names 17 times before it kind-of sticks (I Will Find You, Run Away), a YouTube import (Ms Rachel), the third season of a mediocre action show with a forgettable main character (The Night Agent), one pretty decent thriller thanks to its charismatic lead (Man on Fire) and a well-reviewed Korean cop drama (Teach You a Lesson).

There’s nothing on here that was genuinely exciting, and those numbers reflect that. His & Her’s 104 million is well below that of the toppers of previous reports – Wednesday season two (123m), Adolescence (144m), and Squid Game season two (86.5m, but was released in the final days of that period and if you add the next report’s number, it totalled 203m).

Those titles were zeitgeist moments, whether you liked them or not. People couldn’t stop talking about them, and by default, about Netflix. It made the platform seem essential.

Now, anecdotally, people are saying they barely watch Netflix anymore. Maybe they are watching, but what they’re watching doesn’t make enough of an impact to be memorable.

The wider picture is more complex, and Netflix’s future is a jigsaw made up of pieces such as advertising, live events, sports rights, podcast videos, gaming, linear TV such as its partnership with French broadcaster TF1, content from third party creators including influencers and, who knows, maybe a play for NBCUniversal, which is not currently up for sale but almost definitely will be soon in some form.

That all reads like a lot of spaghetti being thrown at the walls, some of which are sticking and most of which are not.

But, at least at the moment, Netflix’s main business is still original series and movies, and on that front, it is floundering. It just doesn’t make really good titles in abundance anymore. It’s not enough to aim for merely watchable, it should strive for greatness.

The shows that are actually exciting, such as How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, the only truly excellent release of this year, don’t get the marketing and publicity support that would put it in front of audiences. That series only clocked 7.7 million views, which is a travesty compared to the 104 million accounts which pressed play on His & Hers.

Now, when people are sharing the great shows they’re watching or are getting them excited, they’re talking about The Pitt, Widow’s Bay, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Heated Rivalry, Rivals, The Vampire Lestat or Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

None of those shows are on Netflix.