Netflix wants to make 50 percent of its programming original

Fifty percent of Netflix’s content will be original within the next few years, the streaming service announced, spending more than the previously announced $6 billion to make it happen.

The company’s CFO, David Wells, told a group gathered at a Goldman Sachs conference that the company was devoted to making half of its television and film content completely original, according to a report from Variety. This past year, the company spent $6 billion on original content and licensing acquisitions, but according to Netflix’s head of content, Ted Sarandos, only 10 percent of that went toward original programming. A large portion of the money was spent on acquiring licensing from various networks and studios for the company’s global streaming presence, including picking up the international distribution rights for series like CBS’ Star Trek Discovery.

Wells said that as of right now, the company is one-third to halfway toward its goal of having 50 percent of its content being original, but its still working on licensing agreements with third-party networks and studios. That means that while subscribers will certainly start to see a lot more "Netflix Original" stamps on the TV shows or films offered, a portion of that original content will still be outsourced.

Wells also spoke about the type of content Netflix was looking to bring to subscribers and said Netflix wasn’t expecting every new series to be a Stranger Things or BoJack Horseman. Instead, Netflix is looking to curate to almost every single subscriber and offer the widest variety of television and film content available to consumers right now. The service is also aiming to release new shows and films more frequently than it currently is, with multiple titles being released every single month.

Netflix is looking into different avenues to increase revenue so it can continue to invest billions into original content, including making the baseline subscription fee $9.99 instead of the original $7.99. Wells said that Netflix is not interested in exploring ad-based subscription plans at this time.

Wells did not mention how many of the new series and films would be 4K- or HDR-enabled, but Polygon has reached out to the company for more information.