Netflix Hits Over 57 Million Subscribers At The End Of 2014

2014 was a good year for Netflix. A very good year. The streaming service ended the year with 57.4 million subscribers. Netflix added 1.9 new subscribers in the United States and another 2.43 million in foreign markets just in the last quarter of 2014 alone. One reason given for the subscriber boom was Netflix’s commitment to producing its own original programming.

In 2015, Netflix expects to produce 320 hours of original programming including movies, documentaries and comedy specials. The company’s 2014 fourth quarter subscriber expansion was right about the same time when Netflix was debuting original specials including “Jim Jefferies: BARE”, Chelsea Handler’s “Uganda Be Kidding Me Live”, Chelsea Peretti: One of the Greats, Nick Offerman: American Ham, Doug Benson’s “Doug Dynasty” and Bill Burr’s “I’m Sorry You Feel That Way”.

Netflix also has its original series returning this year including “House of Cards” and the dark comedy series, “Orange is the New Black”. Plus coming to the streaming service’s lineup of originals, there’s the new comedy series, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” created by Tina Fey which Netflix grabbed from NBC, Bill Burr’s animated series, “F Is For Family”, Ricky Gervais’ one hour “Derek” special and Judd Apatow and Paul Reubens will go into production this year on a brand new “Pee-Wee Herman” movie.
Variety reported that Netflix also had picked up the Subscription Video On Demand rights to the talked about Sony Pictures comedy, “The Interview”.

One thing that didn’t seem to hurt Netflix’s subscriber numbers or their profits was the postponement of Bill Cosby’s comedy special, “Bill Cosby 77” which was intended to be released last Thanksgiving weekend. The stand up special was a celebration of Cosby turning 77 years old and it was taped on his birthday. Netflix put the special on hold after dozens of accusations came out against the comedian.