Netflix increases prices again

Leading online streaming service Netflix has increased the monthly price of a subscription by a US$1, and will affect subscribers in the US, Canada and Latin America.

The new cost of US$.9.99 is the latest price hike the Los Gatos-based digital company has made, coming after an increase in Europe earlier this year and a worldwide hike in 2014.

The move is reflective of Netflix’s share price, which currently stands at US$114.93 and has more than doubled this year. According to business wire Bloomberg, Netflix is 2015’s top-performing company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

The increased revenues the price hike should bring will go towards financing new original content, with Netflix now ordering its own television series, documentaries and movies.

This week, Netflix ordered its first Italian-produced original, Suburra. The ten-part show is billed as a “dark, gripping organized crime series set on the Roman coast”.

Suburra will launch on Netflix globally in 2017, and has Romanzo Criminale and Gomorrah creator Cattleya on board as producer, and Italian pubcaster RAI and its RAI Cinema arm also attached.

The series will be preceded by a Stefano Sollima-directed feature film, which will debut on Netflix in the Americas and in Italian movie theatres next week on October 14, with the Italian Netflix service following in May 2016.

The series will then follow on all Netflix platforms, with RAI in Italy airing it after its SVOD debut.

The story will tell the brutal battle for control of a seaside town outside Rome that is to be developed as a gambling paradise. It will include corrupt government and church leaders, crime family bosses and a young events organizer caught up in events.

Cattleya has begun development, with production due to begin in the second half of 2016. The series will be based on a book from Giancarlo de Cataldo and Carlo Bonini.

RAI’s involvement represents a move that industry insiders have expected with increasingly certainty this year. With Sky Italia marking itself out as a leader in high-end TV drama through series such as Gomorrah, producers and distributors have reported the pubcaster as sounding out similar concepts in order to better compete with its pay TV rival.