Video streaming service Netflix will add news to its diversified programming, which boasts the premiere of its first feature film “Beasts of No Nation” this week and launch of its first talk show with comedian Chelsea Handler in 2016.

Known for its subscription service to a wide variety of cult TV shows and films that allows viewers to tune it at any time, Netflix will widen its reach into other formats, such as talk shows and documentaries rather than traditional live news reporting.

The new business move was revealed in a live stream interview on the company’s third-quarter financial results, and is expected to capitalise on the gap in the online video streaming market for news.

Broadening its program offerings could also strengthen the popular Netflix brand, said Hamish Chadwick, director of branding consultancy firm Image Substation.

“I think it’s a very smart move as it’s focusing people more on the Netflix brand so people don’t have to jump outside Netflix to get that sort of content.”

Chadwick said poaching well-known personalities to front new shows would build the home viewer’s confidence in Netflix’s new programs.

“If you get some familiar faces I think trust would be built very quickly,” he said. “It would be unusual to pluck people from obscurity.”

Netflix made a profit of $US29.4 million over the quarter ending September 30, lower than the expected $US31 million, and down from $US59.3 million during the same time last year. During this period it also gained an additional 3.6 million subscribers, but only 880,000 of these were from the US, lower than the projected 1.15 million.

In Australia, the popularity of Netflix has grown with subscriptions reaching 968,000 in September, a growth of 10.5 percent from August. However, the numbers of people using the service is higher, said Tim Martin from Roy Morgan Research.

“Netflix reaches 2.6 million Aussies aged 14+ (13.4 percent) in their homes, or on their mobiles and tablets. This ‘people’ rate is higher than the proportion of households because the homes more likely to subscribe to Netflix are often those with more people in them—such as young singles living in share houses or parents with teenage kids.”

Young users dominate Australian subscriptions, with 19.8 percent of young couple households, 18.9 percent of young singles and 17.8 percent of young parents with access to Netflix.

Netflix’s move into producing more original content has been accelerating for months -- in September the company announced that it would be getting rid of widely available offerings on its list, such as “The Hunger Games” and “World War Z”, to focus on more exclusive films and series.

Its latest announcement on news programming would put it in the same market as Vice, which began its weekly documentaries series on HBO in 2013 and set launch a daily news program for the cable network.

When asked whether Netflix would rival Vice directly in the next two years, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said the chances were “probably high”.

“On the news side, we are definitely being more adventurous about the genres we are going into,” he said.

RELATED STORIES