Netflix strikes gold with 'Squid Game' season 2 success
Many people wonder how streaming productions are accounted for. In the case of theatrical films, the matter is straightforward. A title generates income from ticket sales, which may or may not cover the production costs. Agencies specialising in providing information about financial markets have calculated the biggest hit on Netflix—"Squid Game."
According to a report by "Bloomberg News," the second season of "Squid Game" generated more than a billion dollars for the Netflix platform. It should be noted that in this context, "generated" should be understood in a rather conventional way. As we know, users of the largest streaming platform do not incur additional fees for premiere titles. Almost all of Netflix's revenue comes from one source—subscription fees. "Bloomberg News" calculated the contribution of the Korean production to the streaming platform's revenue.
It's worth remembering that the second season of "Squid Game" is the third most popular series on Netflix. In first place is "Squid Game: Season 1," and in second place is "Wednesday: Season 1." "Squid Game: Season 2" recorded 190 million views, which translated to 1.36 billion hours of viewing. These achievements may ultimately be even better, as Netflix evaluates its productions after 90 days of viewing. This period for the Korean production ends on March 26.
Meanwhile, the Owl & Co. agency has calculated the cost per thousand hours of viewing "Squid Game." According to the report, the second season was almost four times more valuable than the average Netflix production.
To reach this conclusion, analysts divided the $15.3 billion Netflix spent on producing all content by 188 billion hours of viewing time. Thus, they calculated that the average cost of watching a thousand hours of original Netflix programmes is $105.
Meanwhile, the second season of "Squid Game" had a reported budget of $70 million, meaning that the platform paid only $28 to watch a thousand hours of the series. This makes the cost of watching a thousand hours of Korean series 3.75 times lower than the average series or film produced by Netflix.
