Producing these series rather than licensing them from networks gives Netflix greater control over the content. It can play with the structure to make the shows work better for its ad-free format. “In my house, we watch an embarrassing amount of Home & Garden Television,” said Sarandos. “If you watch those shows on the network, every time there’s a commercial break, they recap everything you just watched. Well, when you put them on Netflix, you strip the commercials out, it’s ridiculous. … When we produce the 30-minute unscripted show, it’s 30 minutes of programming. But no catching up because we figured you’d remember what you just saw.”

It can also tweak the series to make them land internationally. Netflix created nine localized versions of obstacle-course competition Ultimate Beastmaster, for example, with different hosts chosen for each market. “We can decide between, do we want to make a local language format of this, or do we want to make this show travel a little bit better by tweaking the show a little bit,” said Sarandos. “That you could never do with domestic-only licensing.”

Netflix has been pushing hard into international programming now that more than half of its users come from outside the US. It counts German dramas like Dark, Danish series like The Rain, Brazilian programming like 3%, and anime series like Devilman Crybaby among its Netflix originals.

And let’s not forget movies. Netflix is beyond the days of making its land grabs at indie film festivals and is now attracting directors like Martin Scorsese to make movies just for its platform. The streaming service, which opened a studio on Sunset Boulevard in 2017, plans to release more movies this year than most other major US movie studios combined.

Just about the only segment of entertainment Netflix hasn’t touched are mainstays of live TV, like sporting events and news broadcasts, which don’t make sense in an on-demand format. Give it time. Netflix is already plotting ways into those genres with docu-series like Formula 1, and news magazine shows like My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.

While 1,000 originals may seem like a lot, not all of that programming is available to everyone everywhere. Netflix has been snapping up the international rights to popular programming where it can. The series Designated Survivor, which airs on the US TV network ABC, for example, is branded as a Netflix Original outside of the US and Canada.

In other words, don’t expect Netflix to stop flooding its users with content any time soon. “We’re a fraction of the hours of viewing of YouTube,” said CEO Reed Hastings, on his company’s latest earnings call. “We’re a fraction of the hours of viewing of linear TV. We’ve got some great momentum, and we’re very excited about that, but we have a long way to go in terms of earning all of the viewing that we want to.”

Netflix may never be all things to all people. But it hopes to be one of the one to two pay-TV services viewers turn to regularly. The question is, will its programming match the quality of its rivals while doing so many things at once?

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