Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Netflix has spent nearly 20 years disrupting the television business, but its most recent programming innovation — live events such as the boxing clash between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul — has been standard fare for traditional networks since the 1950s.Now the streaming group is adding another old-school format to its line-up: the chat show. At a star-studded presentation in Hollywood last week, it announced that comedian John Mulaney would launch a live weekly variety show called Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney in March. “If we can be one-tenth as popular as any show from South Korea, then we will be the biggest talk show ever,” Mulaney joked, referring to the huge audiences drawn by Netflix’s Squid Game. Netflix’s expansion into live programming is aimed at driving revenues to its nascent advertising business — another foundation of the classic TV model. The company broke its long-standing opposition to advertising with the launch of cheaper ad-supported options in 2022, a time when investors were concerned about slowing subscriber growth.The push appears to be working, despite some minor but well-publicised technical glitches. The Tyson-Paul fight in November was the most-streamed sporting event ever, leading to a surge in new Netflix subscribers, while two NFL games at Christmas — one featuring a halftime performance by Beyoncé — generated up to $180mn in US advertising, according to Bernstein.Together, they helped drive Netflix to a record 19mn new subscribers in the most recent quarter, bringing its total to more than 300mn.The momentum has continued into the new year. Netflix last month debuted its weekly livestream of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Raw, the product of a $5bn deal struck between two companies last year. WWE said its audiences on Netflix were twice the size of its old deal on traditional TV. The 10-year WWE deal is the perfect example of the kind of live programming that Netflix looked for, said Bela Bajaria, its chief content officer. “We love to do something that’s noisy, that’s surprising, that can really create a tonne of conversation,” she told the Financial Times. “Live [streaming] is a great tool to expand into different kinds of programming.”She said wrestling was attractive to Netflix because it had a loyal, all-age fan base and generated new weekly programming all year round. These qualities are also attractive to advertisers, according to analysts.“The goal of Netflix is to keep you coming back constantly, and the beauty of content like WWE is that it’s new every Monday,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at research firm LightShed Partners. “For advertisers, the [attraction] is that it’s live and you get programming that works all around the world.”The live programming push coincided with a strong run for the company. Its share price surged 83 per cent in 2024, and has increased a further 10 per cent to $981 so far this year. Yet some Wall Street analysts say it has space to rise further.“I absolutely believe they’re going to continue this growth,” said Laurent Yoon, an analyst at Bernstein. He expected strong subscriber growth to continue — particularly in markets outside the US, where penetration was far below US levels. “Netflix has recently proven to be a credible destination for live events” which could lead to higher advertising revenue, he added. The financial recovery from the 2022 “Great Netflix Correction” appears to have helped the company regain its swagger.Presenting Netflix’s 2025 line-up last week, Bajaria took a swipe at rival Hollywood studios for relying on sequels, saying Netflix deserved more credit for its original “prestige” programmes. “We aren’t afraid to take big, bold swings,” she said, pointing to Emilia Pérez, which received 13 Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture. “We just received more Oscar nominations than any other studio.”The company will also stream more live sport this year, including a return of NFL games at Christmas. Netflix has also secured US rights for the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031.Now that Netflix has shown it can capture large global audiences for live sport, the question is how quickly it plans to expand — and how much it is willing to spend. The success of the boxing match, NFL games and its popular sports documentaries have fuelled talk that Netflix would sign a streaming deal with a major league. The company has damped down such speculation, citing the high cost of sporting rights. Bernstein’s Yoon said he could see Netflix doing smaller “niche sports” deals that engaged audiences, even if it forgoes expensive rights deals for football, basketball, the NFL or baseball.Other streaming companies have paid up for sports rights, including Amazon, which in 2021 agreed to pay about $1bn a year for the exclusive rights to Thursday night NFL games. Apple has rights to streaming some Major League Baseball games and Major League Soccer. Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos has repeatedly ruled out buying expensive, multiyear sport rights packages, while saying in January that he was “thrilled with everything about” the deal to stream two NFL games in December.“But it doesn’t really change the underlying economics of full-season big league sports being extremely challenging,” he said. “If there was a path where we could actually make the economics work for both us and the league, we certainly would explore.”
