22 Facts About Streaming Giant Netflix That May Surprise You
Netflix is one of the most popular companies in the world right now, and that’s no surprise. How else are we going to get our much needed hits of Orange is the New Black, House of Cards and Breaking Bad?
But how much do you actually know about the online streaming giant? Apart from the subscription price and some epic plot lines, not much I’m guessing.
So to help you out here are 22 interesting facts about arguably one of the most influential media companies on the planet.
1. Netflix was almost Blockbuster.com! In 2000, Blockbuster tried to a 49% stake in Netflix in an attempt to make them their new online service. How the tables have turned
2. Some of Netflix’s 76,897 categories will make you laugh. “Cool Moustaches”, “Dark Canadian Thrillers” and “Understated Detective TV Shows” are all available for your viewing pleasure
3. You can use the amazing ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ system to organise your Netflix movies. How good is that?
4. Netflix employees can take as much holiday as they want! Bet it’s quiet in their office in the summer
5. April Fool’s Day is a big thing at Netflix, this year employees added some ‘questionable’ categories to their list. ‘Epic Nicolas Cage Meltdown’ being one of them
6.Using too much data watching Netflix? Well here’s any easy fix; log into Netflix on your browser, go to Your Account, then Playback Settings, then Manage Video Quality. Set the lowest quality possible, picture will suffer but you’ll use less data. Winner
7. Watching on your computer? Well here are some handy shortcuts. F=Full Screen, Shift+Left Arrow=Rewind, Shift+Right Arrow=Fast Forward, M=Mute, Up Arrow=Volume Up, Down Arrow=Volume Down, Enter=Play/Pause, Page Up=Play, Page Down=Pause, ESC=Exit Full Screen. You’re welcome
8. Worried about missing shows? ‘Now Streaming’ lets you know what shows are getting removed each week from Netflix
9. Netflix users stream a staggering amount of content per day. Roughly 100 million hours!
10. In the USA, Google Fiber offers the best connectivity for Netflix users
11. They make loads of money. Quarter 1 of 2015 raised Netflix a whopping $1.4 billion
12. Netflix have had some glitches on their way to success. A big one in 2014 was two titles being combined into one. Thankfully users spotted it and let everyone else know
13. Staggeringly, more people in the U.S. are signed up to Netflix than cable TV
14. Statistically those people with children are more likely to have a Netflix account
15. Netflix’s first content was a test film created to test the film frames. If you want find it just type in ‘Example Show’ (USA only though I’m afraid…)
16. Of course, one show leads the Netflix streaming charts. Walter White and his crazy meth-addled life ‘Breaking Bad’
17. Since it’s inception Netflix have made 66 original programmes. These span across the genres, with one of the favourites being prison comedy ‘Orange is the New Black’
18. Another big hit ‘House of Cards’ was pursued relentlessly, with Netflix bringing in Kevin Spacey and David Fincher because of the popularity of their movies among Netflix users
19. Adam Sandler recently signed a four-movie-deal with Netflix because, “Netflix rhymes with wet chicks” – we expect more high brow entertainment from Sandler any day now…
20. Robin Wright’s Golden Globe award for ‘House of Cards’ made the Netflix the first online programming service to win a major television award. Kudos
21. They even have their own awards, called ‘The Flixies’
22. Watching Netflix earlier in the day will help the quality of streaming. Evenings is when everyone sits down and tries to binge watch their favourite shows
$1.4 billion in just the first quarter of 2015?! I knew we watched a lot of Netflix, but that is just ridiculous. Also how must you be feeling if you are the former owner of Blockbuster? Shoulda woulda coulda my friend. With Netflix becoming a global force in our everyday lives, knowing a little more about the company might make you feel a bit better about shelling out 5.99 every month for their services. Just to show how much Netflix is getting under our skin, Orange is the New Black actress Ruby Rose is apparently so hot she’s turning straight women gay!