Netflix doesn’t want to start streaming live television.
The US video on-demand company has no plans to start streaming live sport events, CEO Reed Hastings has confirmed.
Hastings stamped out the idea during a 30-minute press conference with media at the company’s Hollywood headquarters.
Inside the 280,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art studio opened by Netflix last year, CEO Reed Hastings discussed the streaming industry as a whole, and Netflix’s plans for the future.
Hastings revealed plans to invest $8 billion in original content on Netflix this year alone.
The investment in original Netflix programming shows the confidence the Californian company has in its strategy, even in the face of increased competition from the likes of Amazon, Hulu, and soon, Disney and Apple.
According to technology blog Engadget, Hastings addressed competitors’ strategies around live content – and vowed to never follow suit.
“To follow a competitor, never, never, never,” Netflix CEO Hastings said.
“We have so much we want to do in our area, so we’re not trying to copy others, whether that’s linear cable, there’s lots of things we don’t do.
“We don’t do [live] news, we don’t do [live] sports. But what we do do, we try to do really well.”
Amazon Prime Video and Hulu are believed to be very interested in live television, with the former tipped to enter a bid for the streaming rights to the Premier League.
“If we do our own Prime service, we’ll never succeed,” Hastings added.
The 57-year-old American entrepreneur believes the fact that viewers will never see an advertisement on a Netflix product – despite the potential for lower prices and creating more revenue – is part of its appeal.
He said: “Really having great experience – no advertisements or chopping up all of the content – vastly outweigh the fact that one company is gaining a lot of influence.”
Netflix is forecast to generate $15 billion in revenue this year.