Squid Game has made it big and if you have not watched the show by now, you are probably in a small minority. 132 million people have watched at least 2 minutes of the show in its first 23 days, breaking the record set by "Bridgerton." The 2 minute figure is the one that Netflix releases to public for some shows.
Netflix estimates that Squid Game will create $890 million in impact value for the company, a metric it uses to assess the performance of its TV shows. To top it all, the show cost just $21.4 million to produce, $2.4 million an episode.
To put the cost into perspective, Squid Game cost less than a recent Dave Chappelle special or just a couple of episodes of "The Crown." Netflix has an efficiency metric, which measures show viewership relative to cost. An efficiency of 1x is considered solid. Chappelle’s “Sticks & Stones” was 0.8x. Squid Game is a mind-blowing 41.7x.
Squid Game's success shows how one hit show can create a windfall for a streaming company. With the recent consolidation in the industry, the content wars are heating up and we are here for it.
Short Squeez Takeaway: Squid Game is a timely hit for Netflix that had reported its slowest pace of subscriber additions since 2013 in the first half of this year and had blamed some of its new shows for underperforming. Its stock had also declined for much of the year and trailed the market. Netflix shares are up 7% since the show came out September 17th and could go further up if there is an earnings beat tomorrow.
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