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Netflix further cemented its place atop the streaming throne yesterday, adding more than 8 million net subscribers in Q2 — nearly twice as many as Wall Street had estimated. In markets where it’s available, a healthy chunk of those additions (45%) came from its $6.99 ad-supported tier: a sign that people are increasingly opting to save pennies rather than avoid ads.

As the creators of many of the original shows and movies on Netflix know, commercial and critical success can be hard to come by, but the streamer itself seems to be doing pretty well on both fronts. Indeed, Thursday’s report, where the company also exceeded top and bottom line expectations, capped off a great couple days for Netflix, after hit shows like The Crown, Baby Reindeer, and Ripley saw it pick up 107 Emmy nods on Wednesday, the most for any single streamer or network this year.

Challengers

Not far behind, however — and largely on the back of critical darlings Shōgun (25 noms in the drama category) and The Bear Season 2 (23 noms, still semi-inexplicably, in the comedy category) — was FX, which managed to edge out perennial Emmy-bagger HBO/Max, with 93 nods for the former and 91 for the latter. That’s a record for the Disney-owned network, trouncing its previous tally of 56 back in 2016… though it wasn’t affiliated with Hulu, the streaming platform where The Bear lives exclusively in the US, back then.

Of course, topping the nominations chart doesn’t always translate to major success at the ceremony itself: Netflix still holds the record for most nominations in a single year with a whopping 160 nods at the 2020 Emmys. It only ended up taking home 21 awards that year.