How Netflix Can Regain Momentum

We’re now just a couple of weeks away from the second-quarter earnings reporting season. And if history is any guide, first out of the gate will be Netflix’s report on July 19, which is likely to be one of the most closely watched tech earnings updates of the quarter. Netflix’s first-quarter report, revealing a tiny drop in subscribers and forecasting a bigger one for the second quarter, prompted a big selloff in the stock. So can the company’s next update do anything to change investor sentiment, which appears to have turned about as bearish as can be?

A couple of surveys reported in the past few days provided good reminders of why attitudes are so negative toward the streaming pioneer. One, reported by Variety earlier this week, showed that Netflix was ranked last out of nine name-brand streaming services (Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon and so on) for its value, a sign that recent price increases, making it the costliest service in the U.S., have hurt it. That shouldn’t be surprising to anyone exceptNetflix executives, who argued in April that the price increase was not responsible for the increase in subscriber defections in the first quarter.