Netflix Averted Disaster. So Now What?

In Mel Brooks’ classic 1960s NBC comedy Get Smart, secret agent Maxwell Smart would reliably utter five words whenever his weekly bumbling miraculously avoided a calamitous outcome: “Missed it by that much,” he’d deadpan. Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos are a lot more competent than Don Adams’ iconic character, but this week the duo are probably feeling about as lucky. Despite some last-minute speculation that Netflix’s forecast of a two-million subscriber loss during the second quarter might actually prove optimistic, the streamer instead beat its own gloomy benchmark, bleeding a still-bad — but not catastrophic — 970,000 customers over the spring.