【Friend Wife】

A running joke throughout the latest season of South Park saw a Netflix representatives continually answering the phone to a call from a bunch of 4th graders with,Friend Wife "Netflix, hello, you're greenlit. Who am I speaking with?"

Well, it turns out the joke was more true to life than anyone could have ever imagined.

According to Variety, at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Feb 27, CFO David Wells stated that the streaming mogul will spend around $8 billion on content this year. A big chunk of that is going to original shows, which he said will result in a total of roughly 700 Netflix originals in 2018.

A Netflix representative told Mashable that this content budget includes properties we already know and love likeStranger Things, as well as licensing content from partners like AMC's The Walking Dead.

While 700 is an astounding number, it isn't deviating from Netflix's established business model of using original content to drive subscriptions. “Let’s continue to add content — it’s working, it’s driving growth,” Wells said.

The question of quality, however, does not appear to be a focus. But Wells did mention how they would be using a good portion of these funds for international Netflix programs, like their German hit Dark. They currently plan on including 80 foreign shows and films this year.

But Wells did further explain one shift in the company's strategy. Last month, Netflix revealed to investors that it would increase their spending on marketing from $1.3 in 2017 to $2 billion in 2018.

"We used to think every incremental dollar was best spent on content," he said. "We think marketing is a multiplier on the content spend."

That all makes sense -- even if we already feel winded from just the ideaof sifting through several hundreds more shows before finally finding a decent one to binge.

Updated on March 1 at 1pm PT: More context on the exact nature of the $8 billion budget for content was added to this article, courtesy of a Netflix representative.

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