CES 2016

Netflix Co-founder and Chief Executive Reed Hastings joined Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro in the opening Keynote of CES 2016 to discuss the history of TV from three broadcast networks to pay TV and VCRs to DVRs and now streaming. The emphasis was that we are moving toward what people want from TV—being able to watch anything we want, anywhere we want—and ended with an announcement that Netflix is now making that happen globally.

World premiere first look at a trailer of the new Netflix series, The Crown. The series is about young Queen Elizabeth when she was first crowned and her early years in the (ruling the?) monarchy. A second extended trailer was shown for another Netflix original series about hip hop called The Get Down.

Hastings brought out Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos who talked abut the way Netflix has what they call the “freedom of responsibility culture.” They are given freedom to innovate and are responsible to deliver the goods. That philosophy extends to the way they handle producing content. Netflix hires great filmmakers and gives them free reign to create content with the expectation that they will deliver.

He invited starts of Netflix shows to the stage—Chelsea Handler, Will Arnet from Arrested Development, Krysten Ritter from Jessica Jones, and Narcos’ star Wagner Moura to discuss the experience of creating a show for Netflix. Arent talked about traveling the world promoting his shows and how exciting it is that people from different parts of the world can all watch Netflix movies and TV shows at the same time. This was the set up for Hastings’ final announcement.

When the Netflix chairman came out for his final bow, he discussed the difficulty in negotiations for regional content rights to stream to countries around the world. To date, Netflix is available in 60 countries. He revealed Netflix’s big news of the day—that while he was on stage at the keynote, Netflix streaming has been turned on in 130 new countries including India, Russia, Vietnam, Arab Emirates, Nigeria, and nearly every country in the world except China. (I began to hear the theme song from the Warner Bros. cartoon Pinky and the where the Brain says with a sinister laugh “I’m going to take over the world!”