this is business live from bbc news, with ben thompson and sally bundock. putting on a show of its own. netflix signs up seven million new subcribers proving its billion—dollar bet on original content is paying off. live from london, that's our top story on wednesday the 17th of october. shares in netflix soar in after—hours trading, as it spends record sums on original content — so how are its rivals fighting back? also in the programme. canada's cannabis countdown ends — marajuana is now legal and growers are looking to get high on the potential profits. and as brexit talks rumble on — another crucial week for the discussions and that will mean another volatile session for the pound. the big fight back — we'll be talking to the company aiming to help bricks and mortar

retailers beat e—commerce giants at their own game. and cannabis in canada — it's expected to be big business and bring in huge tax revenues — so should other countries follow suit? let us know — just use the hashtag bbcbizlive. let us know what you think about that. pretty divisive online. hello and welcome to business live. welcome to the programme. the streaming giant netflix has surprised investors with pretty impressive show of its own. subscriber numbers in soared in the third quarter and that sent its share price up nearly 14% in after hours trade. over the past three months, the entertainment firm added nearly seven million users around the world — around one million of those were in the us.

that brings the total subscribers to 137 million. and that's largely down to the popularity of original shows like orange is the new black and the crown. that means that the company's $8 billion gamble to invest in its own programmes this year is paying off. netflix's shares have dipped over the last three months — but over the longer term, it's been one of the strongest performing us tech stocks. its share price has more than trippled in value over the past two years. and that's because in the us, netflix leads in the living room. it's the most popular platform for watching tv — even ahead of cable and traditional broadcasters. alex wood, europe editor, forbes is with me now. so, were you surprised by the numbers or are you among those

cynical saying well maybe they massaged our expectations to wow us today? i am very much in the surprised camp. the last results we re surprised camp. the last results were a surprise, surprised camp. the last results were a surprise, a surprised camp. the last results were a surprise, a dip for the company and yes, there may be issues round mass sanning figure, revenues are looking fantastic, profits are looking good. the longer term outlook i still have major concern, we have talked about competitors coming in the market and we are moments away from big competitors coming in and taking a slice of the pie. as you say there big competitors in the wings and there is change, comcast move, time warner etc, etc so when will netflix feel the heat? it is coming in the next quarter, it has been rumoured but apple look poised to launch their own service and people are talking about the potential for apple to offer it for free. they have enough cash in the bank. the thing for me that really concerns is about

netflix is this idea of saying original content, as one of my reporters has reported, a lot of the stuff we perceive as netflix originals, are not, they are ex conclusives. well, does that really matter when it comes to the viewer, if they love the programme, if they are hooked to a particular series like the crown they will stay with fete felix whether it is original or exclusive. netflix's unique selling point was they were paying so much more money, whether it was original or not to get 2 new content pieces but now when you have apple, disney, people with big buck, years of experience in film—making in television making and it if is about throwing money at the problem they can take some share away from them. how bad will it get for them? it won't become a blockbuster video we hope but will it lose a lot of market share i think they are the

pioneer in this space but i believe it won't be a monopoly play, there have to be more player. coming in and that is a good thing for consumer. are you hooked? being honest i haven't enjoyed netflix for the last quarter. they haven't had a blow out show, last year i was com pletely blow out show, last year i was completely hooked. what are you hooked to a lot of sky atlantic is fantastic. brilliant. it is about succession. other shows are available! thank you. i am waiting for the the xroun 2 it is taking too long. —— the crown. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. the head of the international monetary fund has become the latest leader to pull out of a major investment conference in saudi arabia. christine lagarde, the a long list of top bosses from european and american banks and business leaders have also withdrawn their participation in the event

since the disapperance of prominent journalist jamal khashoggi. us president donald trump has escalated his war of words against america's central bank, calling the federal reserve his "biggest threat". the remarks were made during an interview with us media outlet fox and renews the president's repeated criticism of the fed for its decision to raise interest rates. the us trade representative's office told congress on tuesday it intends to open trade talks with the european union, the united kingdom and japan. under fast—track rules, the united states cannot start talks with the eu, japan and the united kingdom until 90 days after notifying congress. fantastic. thank flybe's shares are down some 27% today in london, it has issued a profit warning blaming weak demand, a weaker pound, and higherfuel

prices, the perfect storm for flybe, a lot of that is to do with brexit of course and the impact that that thatis of course and the impact that that that is having on the pound. it estimated a loss of 12 million, more than 3.5 million it had predicted. soa than 3.5 million it had predicted. so a real warning coming from flybe and the shares down nearly 30%. theresa may is expected to urge other eu leaders to give ground on the issue of the irish border when she addresses them at a summit in brussels later today. brexit talks are deadlocked over the border, but the eu says it's up to the uk to bring new ideas to the table. our europe correspondent, damian grammaticas joins us now. tell us more. it doesn't sound like much progress will be made at all today and that news is come mainly from brussels, isn't it. it won't be made today, we know that already, we know that the

eu's chief negotiator michel barnier who conducts those brexit negotiations in here will deliver his progress report, the benchmark that had been set by the our leaders was they needed to see decisive progress in the talk. michel barnier said yesterday he cannot say that decisive progress was made, that is what he will tell the other leaders this evening and therefore, the talks are stuck. now mrs may will arrive in town, she will have a one sit down meeting with donald tusk who chairs the summits here, she will have a chance to address the other 27 leaders to try to convince them about her reservations about them about her reservations about the eu's plan to avoid a potential border, customs border control on the island of ireland. donald tusk has made clear he is now looking for new ideas from mrs may because the eu will point out that she signed up

as long azerbaijan last december in as long azerbaijan last december in a thing called the joint report, the interim step in this whole process saying there would be no control and northern ireland could be addressed, keeping it under eu regulation, that is the issue that has bedevilled the talks since december—marsh time and the eu leaders will be looking for something to unblock it from theresa may's side. it is clear they will not cede on that one point. what they can decide and the one piece of decision making will be whether the eu side will call a special summit in november. that could be bad news for the in november. that could be bad news forthe uk, if in november. that could be bad news for the uk, if it is for the uk crashing out without a deal and it could be they will start to plan for that. thank you. i know you will stay across that story for us now. we will talk about the issues in a

moment but this is how asia looked and in the us yesterday. the dough is down, suggesting that some of that unease that investors have had is overfor now, that unease that investors have had is over for now, a that unease that investors have had is overfor now, a bit of that unease that investors have had is over for now, a bit of a that unease that investors have had is overfor now, a bit of a good session yesterday, one of the highest points since march. i want to show you what is happen in europe. there is a lot for investors really to digest. the tech stocks led by netflix as we discussed in the us but one thing in focus is the inflation figure in the uk, we had earnings and unemployment figures, today we will get the update on inflation in 45 minute, pecks expect it to tick down to 2.5% from 2.6 the month before, given we saw earnings rising again, that suggests there could be more money in the pocket of auk could be more money in the pocket of a uk consumer. more on that for you ina a uk consumer. more on that for you in a second but first let us head to

wall street. with us stocks continuing their bounce back from last week's plunge, investors will keep poring over the earnings and economic data for signs that it's safe to keep buying. on wednesday, they'll have a particular interest in what the minutes from the last federal reserve meeting show about fed members and the future of interest rate rises. they'll also presumably be listening out for any further words from president trump, after he decided to label the fed his greatest threat in a media interview on tuesday. also being considered will be earnings from metals giant alcoa. it's expected to report a rise in revenue, despite the dangers posed by the trump administration's tariffs on imported steel and aluminium. joining us is maike currie, investment director at fidelity international. nice to see you. morning. so both samara and ben talking about the issues for financial markets, you are issues for financial markets, you a re interested

issues for financial markets, you are interested in what the oil price is doing. the oil price is now looking as though it could hit triple digit figure, it is around $80 a barrel. if we have seen growth go $80 a barrel. if we have seen growth 9° up $80 a barrel. if we have seen growth go up in the uk but the flip side of thatis go up in the uk but the flip side of that is higher prices at the petrol pumps weighing on consumers. yeah, and that of course will filter into things like inflation, we get the uk inflation figure today, expecting about 2.5, 2.6%, so down slightly but we know that is pretty volatile. that affects how much money we have in our pocket. so when hiring oil price will feed through to inflation, it is only more than price rises, and it has been long overdue, we have unemployment at its lowest since 1975 but wage growth has been stagnant. why is that? it isa has been stagnant. why is that? it is a problem across the developed

world, it's a problem since the financial crisis, because of the productivity, because of cellars you issues, a more flexible labour mark and people working in the gig economy we are not seeing wages tick up economy we are not seeing wages tick up as much they should. we will have a debate about canada and candice and trump's take on the federer. he said it is his biggest threat, is the fed. not quite sure how that works but we will explain that later and still to come. the big fight back. we'll be talking to the company aiming to help bricks and mortar retailers beat e—commerce giants at their own game. revenue and profits at asos have jumped again, as the fast fashion company continues to expand across the eu and us. sales grew by 26%, while profits grew by 28%. this "substa ntial" growth

comes despite a costly investment programme. retail expert clare bailey isjoining us from lincoln. what is asos doing right? morning. we were expecting or they certainly made us expect that the results might not be great, but they have come in once again, pretty good. yes, the forecasts were a littleer lower, and they have exceeded forecast and obviously this will be great for the investors because last time the reported results they saw a drop in the share price because they also proposed a larger investment in their infrastructure, than they initially forecast, so this is really good news for the company, to be able to illustrate to their investors and shareholders they are heading in a very strong direction, they are delivering more sales and more importantly, more profit in proportion to sales, than they had

planned to, while still investing in growing the business. those figures look great but not without some criticism. there has been a lot of criticism. there has been a lot of criticism of late about fast fashion, about the real cost of that, and the cost might be the environment, for example. yes, well, i think there is always criticism when we see successful businesses and there are knock on implications, of trying to sell low cost high speed delivery merchandise, if you think about the logistics infrastructure that has to go to support the home deliveries and the manufacturing network there's is a lot of transport coast, store ramming costand lot of transport coast, store ramming cost and carbon footprint related to that, and that is the nature of the business, conversely, you have bricks and mortar retailer, they have their own impact on the irment video. so as consumers with are able to be mind. of the impact but we demand the service level so we can't have it both ways. one to

watch, good to see you. sales and profits at asos continue to soar as the online fast fashion expands apace in europe and the us. dan know has seen sales slow, basically third quarter sales growing, a sharp slow down on growth in the second quarter. your‘re watching business live. our top story — the streaming giant netflix has surprised investors. subscriber numbers rose by almost seven million over the past three months. it's largely due to the popularity of original shows like the crown — and sent its share price up nearly 14% in after hours trade. the retail sector is gearing up for its busiest time of year — christmas. which is — believe it or not — just ten weeks away. and once again, it's set to be a record breaking

year for online retail. last year the global e—commerce market was worth $2.3 trillion by 2021 its expected to surge to $4.8 trillion. china is helping to drive growth — latest figures suggest that almost a fifth of all sales there are online. but if you're a small bricks and mortar store trying boost your online trade — how do you compete with the likes of amazon and ebay? that's where our next guest comes in. mandeep singh, co—founder of trouva joins us now. to be dan nice to see you, welcome to the programme. thank you. how does it work? so, yeah, we are a platform for the best independent shop, bricks and mortar shops across 100

towns and city, and we find these beautiful boutiques with products you can't find on the chains, so we give them the technology to get online, but more importantly we bring them all together on one platform you can find products on line. so it means they don't have do their own website and you will sort out some of the logistic, the delivery, that kind of thing that is right. everything from inventory management software, to payments and going out to find customers so they don't need their own website. going out to find customers so they don't need their own websitem sounds very expensive when it comes to say trying to compete with amazon, they have one big warehouse, they find everything in that one place, put it in the van and deliver it quickly, if you have to pick up from lots of different shops, get it to the customer it sounds like a headache and expensive. well, there is big advantages to it. you were

hearing about asos and the warehousing cost, what is so great about our company is we are using bricks and mortar shops which already exist in high streets so they don't need to have a warehouse, we don't need to hold inventory, what we are doing is saving money by becoming a platform that finds products from these sites. how do you keep your delivery costs down? one of the things we are able dob, and we spent a long time working on it is building technology to be able to find the cheapest price from existing carriers so we look for excess capacity in existing carriers, so couriers who are already in that street, if they have spare space, they go 2 shop and deliver for you as well. exactly and everything from one hour dublin delivery to shipping round the world. what is interesting about this merging of online versus high street and trying to get the best of both. there has been calls for an

amazon tax because they are not paying business rates and in some cases the right tax, i mean, we have seen a different view in terms of who should pay, the likes ofjohn lewis saying we don't want that, what do you make of that sort of competition between high street and online, in terms of whether it is a level playing field? so, it is something our independents feel strongly about around it is not that we feel the online giants should have punitive taxation, but fair, and the concept of business rates in that sense is pretty flawed, because it assumes the amount of space you haveis it assumes the amount of space you have is related to revenues, which it isn't. you have great independents on the high street which we think are fundamental to communities and towns and cities, who are paying business rates whereas the online giant fulfil from one warehouse, so what we feel is it is almost an unfair subsidy from bricks and mortar shops to online giants. before you started the

company with your friend you were working as are retail consultant, for some of the big retailer on the high street, where is it going? one of tinges that made it excited and working with independents we feel they have the griends to win, we forget, it is 25% of retail so imagine what that will do to the high streets when it is 30, 40, 50%. independents do have great products and experiences and a lot of the chains do suffer with that, they are underinvesting in off line space, they are not using their shops to serve their downline customer, so a lot of retail space will disappear on the high street and we need to have an honest debate about what we wa nt have an honest debate about what we want the high street to look like in the future. thank you. very interesting. as we've mentioned today marks an historic day for pot producers.

cannabis is becoming legal in canada, making it the largest country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana. so it's not surprising that it's become a multi—billion dollar industry there and canada is positioning itself as the global marketplace for cannabis. we're kind of like a tech company that produces cannabis. it was really about the idea that this had to be done properly and it was probably more about tech. this has become the hub of the global cannabis industry, toronto specifically is where most of the global cannabis companies are coming to raise their capital. most of the well—known us companies are coming to canada to list on the canadian securities exchange, because they can't list on the nasdaq or the nysc. maike currie isjoining us again to discuss.

retail space the rise in these companies stock prices have been compared to krypto currency and the.com bubble because even though there is interest, profits are still very low and not all of these companies... why are the profits low? we assume they are making money hand overfist? the profits low? we assume they are making money hand over fist? there isa making money hand over fist? there is a lot round the marketing, advertising, legislation, lots of question marks, i also think overtime, the stories understandable, the numbers are big but what is underlying, underpinning the businesses? i am reading the article here, clearly there is is a big business case for it and what canada is keen to make sure they do is do it in the right way, and they control it. a lot of people getting in touch with us, eric says that, it

does less damage than alcohol and tobacco so tax it and take the money out of the hands of criminal gangs, he has a point. it makes sense, there is a consumer story round products, creams energy drinks and meed sip natural stories about treats diseases from epilepsy to other conditions, so, yes, it makes sense to legalise and control it. another viewer says a similar comment, saying as long as there is a need, people will partake, so legalising might keep it to safe for user, many people when we talked about this in the past comment in some parts of london you know, one area is known as little amsterdam because although it is not legal here, it is overlooked by the authorities in many cases. the uk in authorities in many cases. the uk in a sense is still behind in terms of looking at commercial aspect of cannabis, what is interesting is how this will play out on the tobacco industry, because there are some

rumours the tobacco industry will watch this and eventually buy up successful companies. big market. interesting. a lot of money see you very soon. bye. hello. for many of us today will be a dry day with sunshine, but we have some cloud this morning, and you can see it on the satellite imagery, in england and wales and the thickest cloud is in a line from the wash down to parts of central, southern area, so scotland and northern ireland, clear sky, so sunshine here this morning, a few showers working into western scotland, but increasingly lots of sunshine in northern england, wales, the north and west midlands, but it is in this zone from dorset and hampshire, up through to the wash where it will stay cloudy, and there will be outbreak of rain and drizzle.

temperature—wise, well they will be lower than yesterday, 13—17 or 18, this evening we will continue with this evening we will continue with this cloud, edging further south and eastwards, elsewhere it is looking mostly quiet. that is is really because we have this big airia of high pressure developing. you see that weather front in the south—east, that is bringing cloud but clear skies for many, this high pressure extends from the ascore, that ridge across us and with the clear skies, temperatures are going to drop away, so turning chilly into thursday morning, certainly close to freezing in northern area, further south and east clues tore the weather front the temperatures staying up at 10—12. this thursday it will be a lovely start to the day. patchy mist and fog in northern ireland and southern scotland. elsewhere lots of blue skies and after that chilly start, temperatures getting up to about 11-15 temperatures getting up to about 11—15 degrees, and that cloud in the

south—east is gradually breaking up to give sunny spells, the ridge of high pressure stays with us as we go into friday, you notice this cold front moving into the west. it is going to skirt northern ireland and across scotland, western scotland really, so while there will be rain here, during friday, for england and wales, it will be another dry day and bright day with some sunshine. eventually we will see sunshine coming through in scotland, northern ireland as that rain clears through but temperature—wise 12—1 in northern area, up to 17 degrees further south. as for the weekend, for england and wales, mostly dry, mostly settled, a fair amount of cloud round but still bright spells, more unsettled across the far north—west of scotland but again really for much of scotland and northern ireland it stays hello, it's wednesday, it's nine o'clock, i'm victoria derbyshire, welcome to the programme. a dramatic rise in the use of video chats and live streaming is leaving children open to abuse, according to the nspcc today. the girl actually revealed

that it was a man, and he'd been grooming ben, and if he didn't start to act and do things and say things, certain things that he was asking, they would reveal to all his friends that he was gay. that's the shocking story of a teenage boy who was groomed over skype. would you know if your child or teenager was being groomed online? we'll bring you expert advice after ten. we're in the brexit endgame — theresa may heads to brussels today for crucial brexit talks.