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Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, announced today that the streaming service was looking to double the amount of original series available to subscribers in 2017.
Sarandos made the comments during a conference in New York City on Monday, as reported by Variety, telling those gathered that Netflix aimed to have 1,000 hours of original content by the end of next year. Sarandos added that aiming for 1,000 was relatively conservative.
Netflix currently has 30 original series either in development or available to stream right now, and Sarandos said the company is looking into expanding its unscripted or reality TV selection. The network has ordered a new series from Rocky actor Sylvester Stallone and the executive producer of NBC’s The Biggest Loser, Dave Broome. Sarandos said Netflix saw unscripted television as a way to broaden its global audience including in territories like South Korea.
In order to ensure that the company is able to deliver on its promise of more original content than ever before, Sarandos said that Netflix had every intention to invest the $6 billion in its TV series and films that it confirmed it was willing to spend earlier this year. The company is set to spend quite a bit of its budget on creating and acquiring original series, with the goal to make at least half of the shows and films available to subscribers be Netflix originals.
Sarandos added that Stranger Things marks the first series that was created and produced in-house at Netflix, but the company wasn’t looking to make multiple series through its in-house studio. Instead, like with the recent Gilmore Girls revival, the company was also looking to purchase the rights to series and have other studios produce for them, with Netflix essentially being the distributor.
Next year, Netflix will release The Defenders, The Punisher, Iron Fist, Stranger Things’ second season, and a slate of other shows. The company is also planning to bring a few of its original films to the Sundance Film Festival in January.
