Netflix, one-time king of the streaming services, is in trouble.
The company is set to release what is expected to be a disappointing earnings report Tuesday after slow subscriber growth and a lack of new and engaging TV shows and movies, financial analysts and company executives say.
Netflix remains the world's largest streaming platform with 325 million subscribers at the end of 2025. Its current global and U.S. subscriber counts and growth trends are unknown because the company stopped reporting those figures - aside from milestones - last year. The company explained in a letter to its shareholders that other factors, such as revenue, were better measures of its growth.
The company’s stock has struggled in 2026, falling 23 percent from January 1 to date.
Part of the problem also appears to be the content with co-CEO Ted Sarandos complaining that the platform’s new shows lack the punch of past gems like Stranger Things, Wednesday and Squid Game,The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Netflix has fired its chief content officer, chairman of Netflix film, and 1,000 other employees in product, tech, legal and human resources in the past two weeks.
“While once the disrupter, challenger and share taker, Netflix now finds itself on the other side of the chasm and seemingly has to fight harder to remain relevant,” Morgan Stanley Analyst Sean Diffley told The Hollywood Reporter Monday.
Red flags have been emerging for several months. During the company’s last earnings call this summer, Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann said new subscriber growth slowed from April to June compared to the same period in 2025.
However, Neumann added that company was “making strong progress against our goals, and we’re tracking to our financial plan for 2026.”
Along with a lack of new content to hook viewers, the long pauses between seasons of popular shows also appear to be having an impact, a report from entertainment data insight firm Luminate noted in August.
Wednesday, the Addams Family spinoff starring Jenna Ortega, had two years and nine months between its first and second seasons. That gap cost the show 59 percent of its viewership, Luminate said.
Stranger Things, a huge hit for Netflix, lost 23 percent of viewers during the three and a half years it took to release the show’s final season.
“Stagnant viewing hours and lack of a big English-language hit have been the primary drivers of weakness,” Morgan Stanley analyst Diffley noted.
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