NEW YORK  - Netflix is going retro. The $125 billion company behind “Stranger Things” is one of several companies eyeing a Los Angeles signage firm, Regency Outdoor Advertising, Reuters reported on Friday, and is bidding more than $300 million for it. Like Oscar winner Frances McDormand’s character in "Three Billboards," Chief Executive Reed Hastings’ goal may be to grab the right people's attention.

In some ways, the purchase would be an unusual move. Netflix doesn’t do many acquisitions, at least in the classic sense. The firm leans more toward paying for talent and intellectual property. It purchased comic-book publisher Millarworld for an undisclosed sum, for instance. And it inks eye-popping contracts like nabbing “Glee” producer Ryan Murphy from Twenty-First Century Fox with a $300 million five-year deal, according to the New York Times.

Regency owns billboards throughout Southern California, according to its bare-bones website. Yet its signage in high-traffic locations including Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip – the city of Angels’ equivalent to New York’s Times Square – is probably what attracted Netflix. It could use the billboards to promote its original programming like “The Crown” in some of the most high-profile parts of a city dominated by the movie and TV industry.

Owning the space may allow Netflix to save a bit on marketing costs. But as these may jump more than 50 percent this year to $2 billion, reckon analysts at MoffettNathanson, any financial benefit will be hard to spot. Preventing rival studios from renting the space probably appeals, too.

Current Regency owners, brothers Drake and Brian Kennedy, have been a colorful fixture in L.A. culture and politics since the 1970s. In the past they were accused of corruption and have been embroiled in enough legal disputes that employees set up a fake voicemail account for one Christmas Party asking callers to press “one” or “two” if they were being sued or suing Regency, according to the Los Angeles Times. Simply making a show about these scrappy siblings would make the most sense.

CONTEXT NEWS

- Netflix is one of the potential bidders for Regency Outdoor Advertising, a Los Angeles billboard company, Reuters reported on April 6. Netflix is offering more than $300 million for the company, which is owned by brothers Drake and Brian Kennedy.

(Editing by Antony Currie and Amanda Gomez)

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