(FiveNation.com)- In mid-April, it was reported that Netflix stock plummeted 26 percent over the news that the streaming service had lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. And things have gotten worse in the intervening weeks. Last week, Netflix reportedly began laying off employees at its sister site Tadum only four months after it launched.
Netflix launched Tadum in December as an online entertainment magazine that offers news and behind-the-scenes looks at Netflix’s original programming. The company hired entertainment reporters from several publications including Bustle and Vice. And now, quite of few of those reporters are going to have to look for a new jobs.
The company told the website Protocol that it had no plans to shutter Tadum entirely, saying the online magazine remains “an important priority for the company.”
During the first quarter of the year, Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in over a decade, falling far short of its forecast of 2.5 million additional subscribers. The company is also projecting further subscriber loss in the future.
The last time Netflix lost subscribers was in October 2011.
The markets reacted immediately to the news, with Netflix’s stock tumbling 26 percent, erasing about $40 billion in stock value in a day. The company has lost nearly half of its value since it reported weak subscriber growth in January.
According to the New York Post, additional layoffs could be in the offing and other Netflix side projects like Queue magazine may be the next to feel the pinch.
Meanwhile, the company is likely to begin cracking down on subscribers sharing passwords with others. Netflix’s co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos told shareholders that large households sharing one account have created “revenue growth headwinds” for the company.
If Netflix starts demanding that multiple people in one home each create a separate account, they’re probably going to lose even more subscribers.
Of course, it certainly isn’t helping matters that Netflix’s embrace of far-left “woke” ideology has many subscribers canceling their subscriptions and heading for the exits as well.
