The media giant Netflix is moving to a new phase in it’s development by starting to focus on non-English content. Although the majority of it’s media will likely always be primarily English in a move to widen it’s international audience Netflix is starting to produce more localized versions of it’s films and shows.
One of the first places to benefit with this will be Poland, Netflix announced this week that it would be aiming to provide 80% of it’s Polish service dubbed or with subtitles in the local language. This represents a big shift for Netflix which has really focused on simply providing access to English language content irrespective of the country. Poland however is one of the biggest European TV markets and the viewers are used to watching dubbed and subtitled programming.
It is also another effort to try and enforce the copyright laws and the region locking that is currently waging across the internet. Although the company has been very successful in it’s Netflix VPN ban by blocking access from all commercial IP addresses – it’s still a big issue for the company. It is hoped by improving the localized versions of it’s service then viewers will be less tempted to access other regional variations of the Netflix service.
The other reason is that for the first time in it’s history, Netflix has seen some slowing up in subscriber growth. One of the big reasons for this is that some countries simply have little appetite for English language programmes and as such their appeal is limited.
Poland is the first country to be targeted with this new focus, they are starting with some of the big name shows like House of Cards and Daredevil with Polish dubbing and subtitles. They will also be dubbing the majority of their children’s catalogue into Polish too.
They have also commissioned some local content by commissioning comedy and entertainment shows from Polish stars and artists which should prove popular.