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Netflix Shows Are All Worldwide Hits -- Until They're Not (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: On a conference call last October, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos described the hip-hop drama "The Get Down" as a success, like the booming streaming service's other popular shows. Eight months and 11 episodes later, "The Get Down" is history, a flop after one season on the world's largest paid video service. The sci-fi thriller "Sense8," another of the company's lavish productions, was scrapped after two seasons. The back-to-back cancellations caught Hollywood by surprise. Netflix has defied convention by offering no inkling of how many people watch its shows and claiming just about everything is a hit. That's vexed competitors worried about Netflix's growing customer base and influence in Hollywood. The streaming company will spend more than $6 billion on programming this year, a good chunk of that on about 1,000 hours of original shows. Cancellations are common for all TV networks -- even for Netflix, which has wrapped up most of its first crop of original shows. Without the need to attract advertisers, the company is shielded from the weekly audience ratings that determine the fate of most dramas and sitcoms. "One of the great things about Netflix is we don't have to release ratings," Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings said in an interview this week on CNBC. "Each show gets to have its own audience because it is very personalized." That's great for Netflix and its 100 million customers, who pay up to $12 a month for the service. Without pressure to deliver weekly ratings, the company can give shows time to develop a following. "House of Cards," the thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, just started its fifth season. It's not so great for competitors -- or producers who must grope for ways to measure the success of a given program and wonder if they're getting paid enough by the streaming service. With no data, they must rely on the positive remarks Netflix executives make for all their shows.
The down side is we'll never know why they canned the shows
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
it ain't about absence of ratings
For the networks, there's an incentive to keep plodding on with a show until it hits 100 episodes, which is the magic number required for syndication. That's why Star Trek: Enterprise was allowed to stagger through its crummy fourth season. Syndication allows recovery of the sunken costs in a mediocre show.
Netflix doesn't have to worry about that. Syndication has no meaning in an on-demand world. They can make a handful of episodes of, say, Marco Polo, and even if most people don't enjoy it, there will be enough people who do that Netflix can cancel the show early yet still get the benefit of the show in perpetuity. So for Netflix, pretty much anything they make is a "hit" as long as some people, now or in the extended future, are willing to watch it (and keep their Netflix subscriptions going).
...Netflix has defied convention by offering no inkling of how many people watch its shows and claiming just about everything is a hit....
Watch an episode or two or three of the show. If you like it, continue to watch it, and enjoy the show. If you don't like it, stop watching it, and move on. See how simple that is? No need to obsess over what everyone else is thinking about the show.
A show can be a "hit"...but if production costs outweigh the amount of additional viewers they bring in, it's not worth it.
Ideally you want a show that justifies its existence. Did a high number of people sign up just for this show? If the show was cancelled, would a lot of people cancel their subscription? If no to both, then stop making the show, it's a waste of money.
Dear Netflix,
I have no interest investing time to watch a show that goes nowhere. Gets cancelled. Or has no definite ending. Even worse, that ends on a cliffhanger.
Follow a formula like Babylon 5 used. A story with a beginning, middle and end. Having a definite ending where everyone lives happily ever after is important. In the last few episodes you can see the pieces being moved off the chessboard as everyone gets promoted or retires or whatever. It doesn't have to be a five year story arc. But it does have to be something that you can definitely pull off without cancelling it.
I've watched shows that had a well conceived first season. Obviously thought out by a single mind. Or maybe a small number of people. Excitement builds from episode to episode. It has a good season 1 ending. Then it gets a second season and goes off the rails. In season 2 the show has no planned story. The writers wander aimlessly. Eventually the writers turn to thinking about what outlandish twist can we do to a major character -- completely ruining the character's back story in previous episodes.
I know it is tempting to think that if you can drag a show on for more seasons that it makes more profit. That is true in the short term. Eventually your audiences get tired of being strung along without ever having a conclusion. Resolution. They just quit watching. Find other forms of entertainment that have a satisfying ending -- like reading a good book. In the long run, it is more profitable to have a limited pre-planned number of seasons with a story that winds up and makes everyone happy. This kind of show might be watched and re-watched for generations. Just like a good book.
Stop worrying about trying to make a show that everyone wants to watch. There is no such show. This thinking is what killed television, and later cable tv. Make a show that a certain audience will love dearly. Make another show that another audience will love. People who like particular types of shows will continue to appear as new viewers -- forever. There will always be new sci-fi viewers, for example.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I don't know about the Get Down, but my impression of Sense8 is that it was a good show with probably decent but not blockbuster ratings that was just too expensive to produce. Flying all of the actors around the world every season and maintaining so many sets just wasn't practical.
I also tend to think they were running a bit low on ideas about midway through season 2. Oh, another scene were thugs randomly show up but using the power of Korean ex-CEO punching we can knock them out and escape! That said, they did keep the plotline moving at a good clip, commendable for a show like this that can so easily get sucked into the vortex of dealing with dead end sideplots and social moralizing and forget what it was supposed to be doing.
I would be quite happy with a special/movie to tie up the loose ends (like the people in the van at the end of season 2) and call it done, but I'm not going to be angry at them like I was at Fox for Firefly if they just decide to cancel it entirely.
I read the internet for the articles.
That cancellation was rough. Good show.
I find Netflix is consistently delivering good quality shows - at least, shows I look forward to watching.
:
I've really enjoyed
Better Call Saul
The Patriot
The Bridge (American version)
and a few others that I can't remember the names of right now (too many beers, it's Friday)
The subscription is almost free, and I never pay extra for premium stuff. It doesn't have commercials, I watch on my schedule, etc, etc..
What's not to like ?
It makes no sense. Both have an 8.4/10 on IMDb and seem to be very well received. Sense8 clearly has a larger following than The Get Down, which also makes its cancellation surprising. Sense8's recent episode got a very good rating as well.
I guess viewership may have declined or something, but when you've got a good show running, I think it's a mistake to cancel prematurely. Especially when the show is well-received and it was supposed to run five full seasons (as is the case with Sense8).
Back before Netflix did away with star ratings, they had always proven to be really reliable estimates of how much I'd like a show... EXCEPT when it came to Netflix-produced stuff. With those, the "best guess" they'd suggest for me was invariably 4.8 to 5 stars - but, once I watched them, it turned out to be a crapshoot whether I'd even like the show/movie at all. I can't think of a Netflix-produced show I'd give even 4 stars to (if that were even possible nowadays).
So, yeah, it doesn't seem surprising to see yet another piece of evidence that Netflix execs might be less than honest when it comes to their own shows.
#DeleteChrome
From the summary: Netflix is "shielded from the weekly audience ratings".
That is absurd. Netflix in fact is exactly the opposite of this statement; They have nothing BUT audience ratings to drive them. They don't have marketers clamoring for shows to be changed in a specific way. They don't have fights about a show not being able to exist because a timeslot it belongs in is full.
What they do have is pure, undiluted ratings. Is part of an episode boring? Netflix knows to the millisecond when you skipped or stopped watching. Show gets bad later in the season or after the pilot? Netflix knows you stopped watching, and on what episode... Netflix knows when you went back to watch something. Netflix knows when you binge-watched for fourteen hours straight. Netflix knows so much broadcast networks could only dream of knowing about the entire audience...
It makes perfect sense to me that Netflix would toss a show at the drop of a hat, if the audience is leaving in droves. I'm sure they give shows some leeway to find footing but even then Netflix probably knows exactly from data of every other successful show exactly what "finding footing" looks like from a viewing behavior perspective.
I'm pretty happy with the flood of new Netflix content. Yes a lot of it is and will be crap, but that's because 99% of everything is crap. So the more they produce the more non-crappy content will come to exist as well...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the problem is that TV shows are being released all together. You have 10 episodes a season (for example) that just come out all at once. It's like a 10 hour movie. You binge watch it, and have no clue what happened on Episode 2 or Episode 4 - you can't tell when events occurred, you might just remember that they did.
I never understood why Netflix and Amazon release TV shows like this.
What happened to waiting?
Make people wait. Release 1 episode a week, like normal TV shows do. This will make people talk about it, and talk about how they can't wait for the next episode next week. You get people talking, you build up the hype, and plus you buy yourself time.
This all at once system is silly.
On Netflix (streaming), almost each time we want to watch something specific it's not there . So we settle for something else. It's like going to a pizza, but they don't use cheese. Netflix series are good? A few are. Most of them rely on conventional recipes, and after a few episodes, boring ahead. The bad in this is that Netflix teaches people how to view something they don't really want to watch. Like going to a bakery where you don't like much the bread, but that's the only bakery around, so you buy that bread and get used to it. Do you really want that? What will that become within 5 years? I'd favor streaming where you get exactly what you want to watch, even if the price is per show.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
i'd watch it!
Wish I had mod points. This is the whole thing in a nutshell. Netflix has a different calculus for keeping or dropping shows than the networks. And they have practically perfect information on actual viewing numbers (at least the numbers that matter to Netflix - I doubt they care if 5 of your non-Netflix friends are watching your stream or you're watching alone). And lastly they have no reason to explain how they do any of this to anyone.
Now if content--creators- want to know what Netflix viewer data actually is, well they can either negotiate that access with Netflix, or perhaps look for another way to gather the data themselves.
Let's be realistic here, when was the last time you saw a Hollywood film company actually acknowledge that a movie was a flop? The best you can hope for is that a studio will do its best to bury the IP and never speak of it again. For people to claim that Netflix is doing something that Hollywood studios don't, at least in this case, is absolutely laughable.
I bought my kids a $10 pack of some medical drama once only to find out the reason it was cheap was it only got one season. She was not pleased. Shows get cancelled like that all the time.
All that said, what you're asking for is niche content. And you're not likely to get it. Japan gets a little of it with Anime, but it tends to be low quality because of the need to sell merch (think fan service). At the end of the day these are businesses and stuff costs money. They're either gonna need a product with the broadest appeal or they're gonna need a niche that folks will spend big money on.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I think the point was Netflix is shielded from making their audience ratings public. Clearly there's not going to be an incentive to maintain an unpopular show, but there's just as much incentive to make an exaggerated popularity claim to increase the number of viewers, aka false advertising.
But having different tastes in music than you do doesn't make someone a bigot.
They (and HBO/other subscription services) also can benefit from shows with small, but dedicated audiences though.
A show that a small segment like a whole bunch may increase their subscriber base in a way that a show than everybody likes enough to watch, but doesn't love.
And the problem with that is what?
In other words, "They're making money and I'm not getting any."
Or really, they might be making money and not giving it to me.
I can almost see some justification for actors; their reputation is affected by how many people see their performance.
But for everyone else?
If you don't like it, make your own content and publish it yourself.
The problem is that we have essentially raised a generation of people that would rather sit and watch a whole season of a tv show every day instead of getting up and trying to learn or better their self. I stopped completely watching TV about 3 years ago, my wife still watches TV, and occasionally ill turn around and watch a few minutes of a show if its something like South Park, Futurama, That 70's Show, something funny.. Or maybe when I'm half drunk and ready for bed ill watch 30 minutes of whatever she is watching while dicking around playing a game on my phone. Other than that I'm either working, building something, or trying to learn something so I can use it in the future for a project.
There's nothing stopping a company like Nielsen from producing ratings numbers for Netflix shows. The only way anyone knows the ratings of any television station is by looking at the numbers put together by third party measurement companies. Just because Netflix has the ability to measure it's own viewership in-house doesn't mean they're obligated to release those numbers. If media producers want to have an estimate of those numbers, then they can pay someone like Nielsen to compile the necessary data.
"For the networks, there's an incentive to keep plodding on with a show until it hits 100 episodes, which is the magic number required for syndication. That's why Star Trek: Enterprise was allowed to stagger through its crummy fourth season."
OT, but the magic number for syndication is 65: weekdays for 1 quarter (5 days per week * 13 weeks)
Enterprise only had 98 episodes.
While it's true they can (and very much do) have niche shows. Netflix still has to justify the expense of creation, just because they can with no cost house a show that only ten people really love, doesn't mean it's worth $1 million to produce because they will never make a return... even thinking long tail.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the point was Netflix is shielded from making their audience ratings public.
The thing is, Netflix ratings are public - no not Netflix provided ratings but the same crappy estimates that all other networks get for ratings, you can get for Netflix also. So it's not like no-one else has any idea what ratings of popular netflix shows are.
Now what could be said I guess is that Netflix is shielded from having to ACT on these public ratings, because they have far more perfect data. But to me that is till the opposite of saying Netflix is magically immune from ratings the same way other networks are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe 100 is a new metric for syndication, but there are plenty of old shows that were syndicated that didn't have near that number of episodes. Here's the first two I can think of:
The original Star Trek had about 80 episodes in its thee seasons.
The original Scooby Doo cartoon had 25 in two seasons.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
AC here.
For sure, they need to justify it, my point is simply 5 million viewers that love a show may be worth more tho them than 10 million that watch, but don't love it.
Especially for original content, they can use back catalog from the networks as the "filler" stuff.
a Network on the other hand cares little for how liked a show is, as long as it's heavily watched.
It's part of why subscription services have such top notch content, even if not everyone can get into it. HBO doesn't need a show with the broad appeal of The Big Bang Theory, but it needs shows with extreme appeal to smaller groups, and not complete overlap among the small groups.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I'm reminded of a gag I once saw:
Welcome to the tautology club
The first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of the tautology club.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Or they could, you know, collect some data.
Do they think the data on traditional television viewership numbers just pops into existence by magic or something?
Season 1 of The Last Kingdom was interesting but not great. Everything after that was content mill writing. No amount of money spent on production can exceed the value of the writing.
"Producers who must grope for ways to measure the success of a given program and wonder if they're getting paid enough by the streaming service."
Gee, maybe you should get paid for the ACTUAL work that you do, and not how many people view it? Just a thought... This is why I can't stand the entertainment industry. Residuals should be outlawed. No one deserves to be paid for not doing actual work. They should be compensated well up-front, paid by the hour, just like the rest of us.
An important thing to think about with respect to Netflix is how sustainable is this model? Right now Netflix exists because they put money in the bank ten years ago by sending DVD in the mail. Then they pioneered internet delivered on-demand content. They are no longer the only player in the on-demand market, but they keep their subscriptions high by offering these original shows. But like any other studio that produces content, which is a much older industry than Netflix or HBO, public preferences can change or be affected by a number of outside forces. Aside from their ability to bankroll projects, Netflix has zero advantage over other content producers. While they have money, they can compete.
Marco Polo was definitely in the top 10 shows I've watched in the last decade. Was very annoyed they cancelled it.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
There is measure of success, through social media and torrent popularity.
It's in Netflix's best interest to promote every show as if it's the best show they've ever produced. Without ratings, there's not an easy way to knock them down.
"... recovery of the sunken costs..."
Technically speaking, sunk costs can't be recovered. But you're point is well taken.
Netflix puts out as many on the surface obvious bad shows as everyone else.
"Science is the power of man"
I actually liked the Get Down. It may have not had the viewership it needed, but it had enough stars and I gave it a shot. But once they did away with the stars and replaced it with thumbs/up and down, I no longer trust the recommendations. Especially on their in-house shows. I don't think I've given a new Netflix show a shot since then. Especially after seeing previously 1-star trash rise to "98% recommended" overnight (whatever that means).
Thumbs up/down isn't granular enough for me, so I don't even rate stuff anymore. My previous ratings were almost always somewhere in the middle. This in turn just makes the algorithm even worse over time.
With so many other streaming services out there and an increasingly limited selection on Netflix, I can actually see myself unsubbing someday. I'd almost rather go back to a pay-for-whatever-you-want Vudu option instead. Not sure that it would be that much more expensive, over time (might even be cheaper). And I just don't find myself watching Netflix that much anymore. I just wish their algorithm worked better.
A must-see hit is the not the same for everybody... Having a must-see hit for various different people is what matters.
Arguably, netflix probably can facilitate broader content... That said, it's still sad to see a future full of silos.
It's 100 in metric shows, less than that for imperial.
... from the constant barrage you can see on US networks (ABC, NBC, and especially CBS) with promo bumpers for "Watch our net HIT show...", and "On the NEW HIT SHOW this fall..." The thing hasn't even aired yet and it's a "HIT SHOW". Even if its crap, and it gets cancelled in half a season it's a "HIT SHOW". Garbage all...
}#q NO CARRIER
On the flip side, Netflix never loses contributing value of IP. If they shitcan a show after a season or two, that's fine. People who like it might be disappointed, but it doesn't disappear into a canceled show void. This allows the content to be enjoyed by new viewers many years after the show was killed off.
In the major networks model, they lose all investment when a show fails to reach syndication. Heck, their smart move now might be to offer the shows to Netflix as freebies.
Indeed, thank you for the correction. My Econ-Sense was tingling as I was typing that, I should have heeded it.
Enterprise only had 98 episodes.
Which is yet another token of how much contempt the network had for the show. Though maybe we should be glad they didn't extend the series finale into a three-part episode, in which Riker gets to bang T'Pol, beats Archer in a fistfight, kills Shran for calling him a "pink-skin," and more holodeck wish-fulfillment horseshit.
Scooby Doo was split across a whole bunch of series though. It's true the original Scooby Doo was only 25 eps, but that was followed up by over a dozen Scooby Doo series, including the ones where they had lots of guest starts, ones with Scrappy Doo, etc...
I read the internet for the articles.
The shows are already completely produced before they get any of that data. There's no "you are three shows in and nobody is watching, you're cancelled". You always get at least one full season on Netflix. Also, unlike traditional television the viewership ratings aren't immediately available. They trickle in over the months as people decide (or not) to watch the show.
I read the internet for the articles.
Your confusion is that you are thinking that the performance metrics that Netflix uses are entirely congruent with ratings, which is a specific term referring to the weekly data collection for advertising purposes, which Netflix doesn't worry about as they don't need to sell soap or beer.
Hey Netflix - want to know how to get a wordwide hit? Stop blocking shows based on geolocation.
If a show doesn't bring in new subscribers it's not worth spending money on. Netflix understands that the initial buzz will bring in new subscribers. They also know that the turnover rate of subscribers leaving when a show is axed is fairly low. Production costs almost always rise each season due to inflation, talent demands, expectation to one up the previous season, yet new subscription rates decline with each season.
And an outfit like Netflix, just like HBO, has to also measure in whether a show is bonding viewers to its brand. By bonding I mean is the loss of the show a deal breaker for resubscribing the service, and does it bring in new subscribers. A show like Daredevil might bring in new subscribers, but if its spinoffs/related titles only appeals to viewers unlikely to unsubscribe for any reason then those shows are held to a different standard. Deadwood and Rome were shows that were "worldwide hits" for HBO but as the series went on, and the costs went up, HBO crunched the numbers and very quietly didn't renew the shows. Quietly because immediately announcing "Cancelled!" could mean some people respond by cancelling HBO. With the Sopranos HBO got cute by increasing the hiatus between seasons. I suspect this was a factor with Game of Thrones as well though that show's producers claimed a desire to film in the winter is the cause. When a show is a hit everyone involved wants more money. Money that goes to salary and those with a stake can end up getting diverted from the quality feel of the show. I suspect this was a factor in the last season or two of BSG. Everybody got champagne tastes while the show stabilized around delivering Budweiser profits. Sense 8 was very popular among a niche of customers who aren't typical Netflix loyalists so I was a bit surprised at its cancellation. But having watched some episodes I got the sense its production costs were in line with the beautiful imagery that was on screen, so ultimately I can see how Netflix would be nervous about its numbers. JMS, of B5 fame, was involved with the Waschowski sisters, so that fan base was also invested. http://jmsnews.com/forums/foru...
From the interview (scroll to third subtitle).
Our hit ratio is way too high right now,” Hastings said. “So, we’ve canceled very few shows I’m always pushing the content team: We have to take more risk; you have to try more crazy things. Because we should have a higher cancel rate overall.” It’s not that Hastings wants Netflix to purposely make shows that are unsuccessful, though. His logic: By taking big swings, “you get some winners that are just unbelievable winners, like 13 Reasons Why. It surprised us. It’s a great show, but we didn’t realize just how it would catch on.
Season 1 was quirky and brilliant enough to distract you from the cracks in the paintwork. Season 2 has been a confused mess.. Much as I loved the show, it started sniffing too much pseudoliberal self-love juice and became a confused load of fashionable politics, smeared thinly over a mess of a plot.
Well, at least they didn't cram in anachronistic but popular episodes with Borg or Ferenghi.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Scrappy Doo, and Scooby Dumb, which lead to much hair pulling as one obsessed over whether Doo or Scooby was the family name.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not quite all investment. Short shows are syndicated, just for a lot less.
I saw Get a Life with Chris Elliot in Europe.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I absolutely loved the first season, but stopped watching 5-10 minutes in to the second season. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I just could not get into the second season. I'm not the only person I know of that felt that way, so I wasn't surprised at all when I found out it got canned.
If all Netflix series become two seasons, myself and others won't bother. There's exceptions, like Black Mirror, but most good stories need four seasons or more to tell a complete story.