Hi there! My name is Janko Roettgers, and this is Lowpass. This Tuesday: Netflix’s Co-CEOs praise Disney, live TV and possible bundles.

Netflix is ready to go back to its roots: stream popular TV, no matter the source. And if that means bundling other services, so be it.

Amid waning investor confidence, the company is doubling down on partnerships with third-party studios and TV networks, with executives signalling during Tuesday’s earnings call  that we may soon see more linear TV feeds, and perhaps even bundled add-on services, within the Netflix app. 

That’s a remarkable change in tone from a company that not too long ago was ready to spend tens of billions of dollars on Warner Bros. Discovery to bolster its own catalog and studio output, and possibly subsume HBO Max for one massive be-all-end-all mega service.

It also comes as a rocky time for Netflix. The company laid off six percent of its staff, or roughly 1000 people, last Wednesday. Just one day later, the layoffs were followed by another bombshell: Netflix parted ways with chief content officer Bela Bajaria, who had been instrumental to the streamer’s originals strategy for a decade. And a day after that, Netflix fired then chairman of its film org Dan Lin.

In its letter to investors, the company’s chief executives barely mentioned all the upheaval, but also promised that they “seek to accelerate growth in view hours.” 

Licensing and partnerships appear to be key to those efforts. Both in the investor letter and during Tuesday afternoon’s earnings call, Netflix executives repeatedly highlighted partnerships with Sony, Disney, Universal and others. At one point, co-CEO Ted Sarandos even plugged the theatrical release of Disney’s upcoming Ice Age movie, adding with a smirk: “You’re welcome, Josh.”

Sarandos acknowledged that striking partnerships like the one Netflix has with Disney isn’t always easy. “It’s a little bit complicated, because all our suppliers are also our competitors,” he said. “We are thrilled to be in business with just about every supplier in the world.”

There was one more notable name drop Tuesday afternoon: Executives put a major spotlight on the company’s partnership with French broadcaster TF1, even including a screenshot in the investor letter – an interesting choice, given that the partnership itself went live in a prior quarter.

The TF1 partnership is an interesting blueprint for Netflix for two reasons: French Netflix subscribers can access the TV network’s content through a dedicated hub within their Netflix app, which is a notable departure from the way Netflix has traditionally integrated third-party content. Additionally, TF1 actually is supplying a live network feed to Netflix, which allows French Netflix members to tune into the network the same way they may if they subscribed to a TV service.

“We are very pleased with the initial performance that we see with that integration,” said co-CEO Greg Peters Tuesday afternoon. Viewership of TF1 is growing every month, he said, adding: “We believe we can replicate similar results with other partners.”

But Netflix evidently doesn’t want to  stop with ingesting TV networks.