It has done political intrigue (House of Cards), Noughties comedy revivals (Arrested Development) and Gothic horror (Hemlock Grove), and it's doing women's prison drama (Orange is the New Black).
But it was the news that Netflix’s next big push into original programming will be in the kids’ market that lifted its share price by 7 per cent in New York on Monday.
The video-on-demand company’s shares have advanced about 150 per cent this year, making it the best performer on the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index in 2013.
This week’s stock-booster was the announcement that it has agreed to buy exclusive shows from movie studio DreamWorks Animation covering more than 300 hours of new programming – enough to turn Netflix-enabled devices into a formidable babysitting resource.
Individual profiles
The new shows will be "inspired" by characters from DreamWorks' feature films and will begin airing in 2014 under what is the largest deal for original first-run content in Netflix's history. Before that, the first original Netflix kids' series – Turbo F.A.S.T., a spin-off series for the forthcoming DreamWorks' movie Turbo - will debut on July 17th.
The subscription service has also introduced “Netflix Families”, a new page that runs alongside its “Just for Kids” section and divides content into lists such as “Are We There Yet? (summer holiday programming for kids) and “Catch-up TV for busy parents” (for post-bedtime streaming).
Netflix will eventually allow family members to set up individual profiles through the page.
