Netflix is losing subscribers and quickly! After Netflix received backlash from viewers over the Cuties film, Netflix defended its choice to keep the film on the streaming platform, but in turn is paying the price. The popular internet streaming service has seen a plummet in subscriptions by 800 percent.
The French film triggered a boycott in early September and within two days of its premiere, the hashtag “Cancel Netflix” became a trending topic on Twitter gaining attention worldwide. Eventually, on Change.org, hundreds of thousands of signatures were gathered in favor of doing just that. While Netflix is stating it’s coming “pretty close” to meeting its membership goal of 195 million worldwide, according to Netflix’s chief financial officer Spencer Neumann via the New York Post, for the first half of the year, other reports show otherwise. During the three months of Q3 — which ended Sept. 30 — they gained only 2.2. million global subscribers, versus the first two quarters having earned 16 million and 10 million.
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According to New York data analytics firms Antenna and YipiData, Netflix is seeing a serious drop in subscribers. According to Antenna, just days into the online protest, Netflix lost five times as many subscribers in September, and YipiData reports September cancellations being eight-times of those in August. Before the film’s premiere, Netflix published an apology for its advertising of the film.
“We’re sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for this film,” the statement read. “This was not an accurate representation of the film so the image and description has been updated.” The original description entailed this, “Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions.” However, they changed it to, “Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.”
Despite the heavy controversy that surrounds the film, Netflix went ahead and premiered the movie on Sept. 9, only leading to more heat surrounding the topic. From that moment on, people demanded Netflix be pulled altogether, even calling on former President Barack Obama and wife Michelle Obama to use their platforms to get the movie taken down or Netflix nixed. While that didn’t seemingly work, subscribers are turning towards other platforms like Hulu, YouTube TV, Apple TV and more, while pulling their Netflix subscriptions. Netflix still hasn’t said much more on the topic and only time will tell if they’ll do something about the heated conversations.
