Netflix is the ... one that could, in the opinion of some pundits, knock HBO off track. Plepler became CEO on January 1, 2013, and later that very month, Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, declared, "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." Since then, Netflix has launched original series such as House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, acquired the right to air five new Marvel series and Chelsea Handler’s next project, grown from 33 million to 57.4 million subscribers, and increased revenue from $3.6 billion to $5.5 billion, while boosting its stock price almost 400%. "Two to three years ago, the average user was watching almost 60 minutes of Netflix a day. Today, it’s nearly two hours," says Liam Boluk, a media strategy consultant at Redef. "Netflix is bigger than every single cable and premium-cable network in the U.S. No matter how well programmed, powerful, or profitable HBO is today, you can’t look at that scale and might and not feel the need to act soon."
HBO has not exactly been standing still over the past two years, adding more subscribers in 2014 than in any of its previous 30 years; its creative hot streak has continued with True Detective, Silicon Valley, Looking, and more; and it’s far more profitable than Netflix ($1.8 billion versus $403 million in 2014). Yet this good fortune hasn’t prevented Plepler from recognizing the potency of the threat that Netflix and its ilk present.
