#netflix business model

[aveegrex]

I solemnly believe that this new business model that Netflix is actively pursuing is going to be it's end. Inevitably. It's unsustainable in anything but short-term, since people are getting poorer and poorer and aren't that keen anymore on spending their money for a streaming service that can drop any of their favourite new shows on a whim. If such a model existed 10-15 years ago, we wouldn't have gotten Breaking Bad. We wouldn't have AoT today. It's a ludicrous model that doesn't allow for

The show to develop at any speed slower than a two-parter tik tok video

A viewer to get invested into the show at all.

I am used to pirating shows from my early age, and pirating Netflix shows now will bring more harm to the platform itself than to the actual creators and everyone involved in the creative process. If Netflix needs a wake up call, piracy is just that. Pirate the shit out of their content now, make it a user strike if u will. I have no desire to invest a single dime into the platform that can bend me over at any given moment just because the show I love didn't meet their ridiculous expectations. Also, Netflix puts all the marketing onus onto the users. Fuck that. It's their job to market what they have and attract people to both signing up and not unsubscribing to their platform. They do nothing to promote anything, relying solely on insanely obsessed people to make tiktoks and memes about the new stuff. They're literally asking us to pay them money and do nothing but rip everyone off. I believe for all the meme-marketing fan communities do to the Netflix shows, those people deserve to not pay Netflix a dime and actually pirate everything.

[coldzonkprofessorturtle]

Watching a Netflix show nowadays is like curling up next to a warm fire on a cold winter’s night and reading your new favorite book and just as you get to the good part someone walks past, yanks it out of your hands and throws it into the fire. 

[damnitiloveyou]

Just realized if Netflix had done the stupid season split thing last season for Anthony and Kate the hunting party episode would have been the cut off episode. We would have had to wait a month for everything that came after that point. They did Colin/Luke and Penelope/Nicola so wrong. All the people saying how unsatisfying season 3 is, no shit Sherlock, we haven't gotten to the good stuff yet. Literally everything we came for, minus the carriage scene (legend 🔥), happens in the second half of the season.

[dayscapism]

I really want to watch Dead Boy Detectives, it looks very good and like everything I would love in a paranormal tv show, but have been burned before, by many networks but specifically by Netflix. I will not watch any new fantasy shows by them until we have guaranteed at least 3 seasons or we already have them out. My heart cannot be broken like this again, like it did with Lockwood & Co and Shadow and Bone.

(I'm currently watching House of the Dragon and making my way through the Ghibli catalogue instead.)

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

"ermmm yeah the mindset of not watching a new show because you don't want to get attached to it bc so many new shows get cancelled??? yeah that mindset is WHY they get cancelled" please get a wellness check on the brain-eating amoeba in your skull bc i'm pretty sure it's fucking starving.

[purplepixel]

Do you think we'll ever get another animated show that's 24-26 episodes per season?

[beaft]

apple tv and netflix are tied for most useless streaming service. neither of you will survive the revolution

[froggynelson]

marvel studios making tv has been a trainwreck of a business model from the start, but seeing people trying to imply that netflix had a good model for making tv in comparison. like are we talking about the same netflix studios. the streaming service. hello.

[cyreneduvent]

At least they did it fast. Didn’t leave us hanging for a year, didn’t give us too too much time to hope.

[ringwraithmd]

you know what netflix meet me in the dennys parking lot

bc fuck you for canceling shows

shadow and bone

warrior nun

first kill

[penultimatestalematewithdeath]

The Lockwood & Co. cancellation was expected but honestly so devastating. I'm disappointed we won't get to see Holly on the screen, or to see what fresh adaptation decisions would be made for the rest of the books. It's been wonderful getting the resurgence of fandom that came with the release of the show, and I fully expect to keep writing and making content for the series despite this.

[6ebe]

My sister is making me watch the new season of bridgerton with her :(

[tomwambsmilk]

This is such a long post that nobody asked for but I've been seeing Discourse again...

I feel like something that’s missing in most of the discussions I’ve seen on Tumblr about how streaming companies like Netflix have changed TV production for the worse is the profit motive. Or at least, it’s misunderstood. For example, I see a lot of people complaining about how Netflix only considers a show worthwhile if a bunch of people binge it as soon as it comes in, which is true - but I don’t know that everyone understands why, and it's lead to a skewed perception of what's actually going on, and why various studios and platforms make the decisions that they do.

The thing about Netflix is that it’s a public company that's currently unprofitable - so, every single thing it does is oriented toward "growth" (gaining new subscribers). Every show they decide to invest in, they do so because they think it’ll make people who don’t have Netflix want to get Netflix. And if they launch a show, and a whole bunch of new people join the platform, AND their viewer data shows that this show received disproportionate viewership in the same month all those people joined the platform - then it was a good investment. The further out you go from the release, the less correlation there is between the viewership of a show and new subscribers, so the less those viewer numbers matter to them.

Additionally, people talking about the show is more valuable to them than people actually watching it, because people talking about the show gives them free word-of-mouth marketing. Once your friend has bought a Netflix subscription, Netflix doesn't care what they watch, or at what pace. So obviously, if you can make everyone feel like they need to watch the entire show RIGHT NOW because everyone is talking about it and they can't avoid spoilers, that's a much stronger marketing strategy than letting people watch at their own pace.

And that’s why seasons are so short - a longer season costs more money and won’t bring in any extra subscribers, so it's a bad investment. It’s also why Netflix shows tend to be cancelled after only a couple of seasons - if a show hasn’t brought in many new subscribers after the first two seasons, it’s not likely to do so in the future, and so it becomes a poor investment, regardless of how many people already on the platform love it. And even beloved shows like Stranger Things eventually reach a point where everyone who loves it is already on the platform, and even though it's still massively popular it's no longer profitable on the same scale.

All of this is to contrast with network TV, where the revenue comes from advertisers. The more eyeballs are on a show, the more money a network can charge for ad space during that show. So the more beloved a TV show is, the more episodes you want in a season; even if the quality of some of those episodes is poor because the creative team is overworked and underpaid (ie exploited), people will still tune in and you’ll still make money. And that’s also how you end up with shows of 10-15 seasons, even if the show starts to suck around season 8 or 10; as long as enough devoted fans are still watching the show, they can still charge mega ad dollars and make a lot of money. A long-running show with name recognition will make more money, even when it sucks, than an excellent brand-new show with no name recognition. It also means that shows that are self-contained “plot of the week” type shows do a LOT better than stories with season-long arcs, because those shows are more likely to attract casual viewers in addition to regular ones, and people are less likely to abandon the whole show if they miss an episode or two. Plus, if you don't need to worry about the order a season airs in, you can make a lot more money off of rerun adspace outside of the regular season.

And finally, growth looks different for a network. On Netflix, a single person can only provide a single unit of growth, because you're only going to purchase one subscription, so there's very little incentive for Netflix to cater to existing subscribers so long as the platform is 'good enough' for them to avoid cancelling. On the other hand, network growth is calculated based on viewership. So, let's say I watch "The Office" on NBC every week, and nothing else. And then one day, a friend tells me how much they love this other NBC show, "30 Rock", that's halfway through its second season, so I start watching that. That's growth for NBC! They can now charge a little bit more for ad space on 30 Rock than they could before - and it's happened without a whole new person needing to be introduced to their network. So there's a strong incentive to pay attention to what existing viewers want, rather than just focusing on what brings in new viewers. After all, not watching one specific show is a much easier decision than cancelling an entire platform subscription. (The downside of this is that network TV creators are far more beholden to the demands of the audience than a show on a platform like Netflix or HBO, and that can lead to sacrificing some creative integrity).

Overall my point is that the entire structure and shape of TV shows has ALWAYS been motivated by profit. That doesn’t mean the complaints about Netflix are invalid - they are VERY valid and I agree with most of them - but I think it’s important to diagnose the problem correctly: the people with the money to make a tv show are also usually the people who would like to make as much money as possible off your tv show, and will manipulate it accordingly. What’s the solution? I’m not sure, but pretending that these studios are making decisions based on “bad data” or “not understanding what people want” or just pure caprice is simply naive. Its not that they don't know what you want - they just don't care.

[jynersq]

every day i’m more and more grateful rogue one was a movie and not a tv show. lmao

[biolizardboils]

finished Sonic Prime! its nice to finally take down the spoiler filters! also what the fuck whens the rest

[jackklinemybeloved]

I know people say it a lot but like. with all the planned grishaverse shows canceled (and every Other show netflix has canceled for no reason), what the hell is netflix’s plan after like, next year? once stranger things and the umbrella academy end, what big show do they have left to keep people subscribed? fucking. OBX s4?