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Netflix Is Betting On Exclusive Programming
An anonymous reader writes: You may have heard of the recent launch of the new Daredevil TV show, and possibly the hit shows House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. They're all original programming from Netflix — the company that used to just mail DVDs to your door. But Netflix is now running a lot more than just those three shows — it has 320 hours of original programming planned for this year. This article discusses how Netflix is betting big on original, exclusive content, and what that means for the future of television. "Traditionally, television networks needed to stand for something to carve out an audience, he said, whereas the Internet allows brands to mean different things to different people because the service can be personalized for individual viewers. That means that for a conservative Christian family, Netflix should stand for wholesome entertainment, and, for a 20-year-old New York college student, it should be much more on the edge, he said.... 'We've had 80 years of linear TV, and it's been amazing, and in its day the fax machine was amazing,' he said. "The next 20 years will be this transformation from linear TV to Internet TV.'"
Excellent shows, commercial free, on demand, released one season at a time. At the same time I have watched some networks take a 30 minute time slot show and reduce the actual show from around 21-22 minutes to 17-18 minutes, making more time for commercials. I'll sit on my couch with my potato chips and watch the demise of network TV with delight.
s/©//g
Sorry if this offends comic fans, but Daredevil is meh. Reasonable plot/character development, interrupted by extended punchfests reminiscent of '60's Batman Pow! Blam! Zowie! kitsch.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It is news. Between Netflix and Amazon developing their own shows, and HBO converging to the same market from the other side by launching a standalone streaming service, it's increasingly clear that we're in the middle of a major shift in television.
It's not a single, discrete event, but few truly important stories are.
They're a company that wants to stay in business. TV's about as locked in as can be and even they're draining audiences in one form or another. The internet is an amazing levelling field, and even if terrestrial TV packed up and quit tomorrow, there'd be no firm reason NetFlix alone would dominate the internet markets. They're playing the same game by locking up good content behuind their platform so that if/when the sh hits the fan, they'll have something to keep loyal customers paying well for their services.
Bye!
They should un-cancel Better Off Ted. That lie detector scene was priceless and that fake Veridian ad about friendship was really spot-on.
Deal with it!
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It's fucking Kevin Spacey. You shut your whore mouth!
Between the disruption of well established television model, the impressive evolution of the capabilities of the internet, and the recent decision on Net Neutrality I'm convinced you're trying to sound smart by being contrarian.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
NetFlix is wonderful. Every dog has its day and back when theaters were being crushed by cable and over the air stations were dropping like flies the cable industry could have cared less. Now cable TV is in serious trouble with no way to fight back except the one very obvious way. NetFlix delivers a ton of entertainment for $8. per month. Hint to cable : Deliver more for $8 than Netflix instead of charging hundreds per month.
It's probably a good thing that companies like Netflix are making good original programming, but I've noticed that their catalog of classic films has shrunk significantly.
What I really want is a service like Netflix that is more Spotify-like, with an enormous catalog of old films, classic foreign films, art films, shorts, animation, etc.
I guess the fact that copyright trolls are scrambling to take old movies out of the public domain and congress has seen fit to extend copyright to ridiculous lengths makes that a problem. So even though I subscribe to Netflix, I find myself looking to torrent sites and the Internet Archive to scratch my film noir, King Vidor, Vittorio De Sica and Busby Berkely itch. Because sometimes Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve in "The April Fools" or Lee J Cobb in John Boorman's "Point Blank" is just what the movie doctor ordered. Sometimes, a creepy-as-hell Richard Widmark in the 1953 Sam Fuller classic, "Pickup on South Street" is preferable to watching Ryan Gosling try to create an expression on his face.
Hell, a little while ago, I just wanted to sit back and enjoy the 1973 blaxploitation classic, "The Mack" and learned that Netflix doesn't have it available for streaming (but you can get a DVD if you still use that legacy format). I mean, what the fuck. Who's gonna mess with physical media and snail mail just to watch a movie? Not only that, but they don't carry "Trouble Man" at all, and that has one of the greatest soundtracks ever by Curtis Mayfield.
In case you aren't familiar with cinematic masterpiece "The Mack", here's the scene where Goldy and Pretty Tony face off. Check the very young Richard Pryor: https://youtu.be/sdR_t5nsZqI
I'm spoiled because back in my university days, I worked as a projectionist at a revival house for seven years and got the most thorough education in film history one could ever hope for. But some of you younger folks might not know what came before The Avengers and Fast and Furious 7, and that makes me sad. Hell, the 1970s were a veritable golden age for independent films and hardly anybody gets to see those movies today. Even the "classic movie" channels on cable only play the same top forty old movies over and over again, never digging deep into back catalogs. There is so much cinema to be discovered. Don't fear the black and white or silent.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Don't you have that exactly backwards? "Net Neutrality" has been the default. The new neutrality laws don't create a level playing field, they preserve it. Why would Net Neutrality and having Comcast separated from the content creators make it harder for Netflix? They're already paying for bandwidth. And Netflix users are already paying for bandwidth. And with the incestuous relationship severed, what would Comcast's incentive to screw with Netflix be?
Or do you believe we've reached peak bandwidth?
You are welcome on my lawn.
the only TV I watch anymore is Netflix and Amazon.
That's fine for people who don't watch live political news (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN) or live sports. Because the leagues still sell exclusive rights to particular matches to traditional TV networks, the leagues' streaming subscription services black out any match shown on broadcast, cable, or satellite TV in your area
I don't think they're getting that much for the ads. After all, netflix manages to offer ad-free stuff for $8/month, same as Hulu+. It's probably closer to the difference between $8/month and $12.
I think the ultimate reason Netflix is creating it's own content is that the more content it controls, the more influence it has over the other media copyright holders. If Netflix can legitimately argue that if copyright holder X doesn't play ball, that it's average subscriber won't sign up to site Y for $Z revenue because the subscribers will simply watch something else, such as one of Netflix's exclusive shows, then they're leaving money on the table, and they don't like doing that.
Sort of like a backwards HBO. HBO does great shows, but are really exclusive about them. If you want to see Netflix's shows, you have to sign up, but it's not nearly as expensive as a cable package + HBO.
I don't read AC A human right
House of Cards is a remake of a British TV series from the 90s. And this isn't the first Daredevil offering either.
You know this, but I'll point out that they mean "original" as in content not produced by a different company. The actual script does not need to be new in any way at all to qualify as original material.
Netflix would answer thus: "Show older shows so you don't have to pay as much in royalties."
Though I happen to like Daredevil, I definitely WOULDN'T recommend it for children. At least, not younger children. There's a large amount of bloodshed that even the Marvel movies don't have. Without getting too spoilery, the Fisk "car scene" in Episode 4 alone would make this not for kids.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Hulu however has current TV a day later. Netflix doesn't get it for months. Hulu's also sponsored by the content networks who are trying to basically regain their ad revenue.
Netflix is creating original content because it can - its business model depends on subscribers and growing that subscriber base. Showing unlimited movies that have been out for months, or TV seasons that everyone else has seen months ago doesn't grow subscribers, especially since OTA TV will get them for free too, just on a less convenient schedule.
Instead, Netflix has to basically create content or inherit content that the networks can't justify carrying so subscribers have something new to watch.
Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, etc., they get the latest TV within hours of airing which is why they generally cost more because their first-run. Netflix picks up the rest.
In the lifecycle of a movie, it first comes out in theatres. Then it comes out as a digital rental (CinemaNow, Vudu, etc). Then it comes out as purchase - either digital (iTunes, Ultraviolet, etc) or physical (DVD/Blu-Ray). Then general rentals, then Netflix, and finally, regular free TV. This takes around a year or two to fully execute.
The lifecycle for a TV program is first airing, then digital sales (Amazon, iTunes), and Hulu. Then months later, season box sets on DVD, and Netflix.
If you're not fussy about waiting, Netflix is a great service. Most people though can't wait that long for their TV, so there are options. And Netflix knows once they have the people who don't care or who don't mind waiting, their subscriber base is saturated. They need to have new content to attract new subscribers who may not watch much of the catalog, but will catch the exclusives and pay for it.
I take issue with the idea that conservative entertainment is inherently any more "wholesome" than any other. Conservatives aren't the authority on morals, at least not the sole authority, as much as they would like us to believe that they are.
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