Hidden Gems of Netflix's Watch Instantly

Yep, that 'Pitch Meeting' video was spot on, kazar. I'd actually forgotten some of the even-more-stupid elements of the plot.

And I think you're may be very close to the truth, Baron of Hell. The purpose of this film was not to make sense; it was to keep teenage boys watching from start to finish.

I wonder whether streaming services represent a simple, but effective way of getting R rated (in the UK, 18 rated) films in front of lots of 15 year old boys. Do many adults with older children bother with age restrictions?

I know this was back in the day but I watched some R rated films at 13 with my parents.
Being exposed to some adult themes can be healthy for teenagers. Constantly preventing them from the hard consequences of violence while exposing them to violence to their hearts content could be part of the problem we are experiencing today.

As a matter of fact, the ratio should be flipped. Because we can see in real life, one act of violence leads to years worth of unrest and distress. Whether it is localized or widespread doesn't diminish the intensity or lessen the potential concerns of the masses.

detroit20 wrote:

I wonder whether streaming services represent a simple, but effective way of getting R rated (in the UK, 18 rated) films in front of lots of 15 year old boys. Do many adults with older children bother with age restrictions?

Years ago my friend and I were introducing his sons (they were about 11 and 13 at the time) to some of the movies we loved when we were growing up, like Predator and the like. They were technically rated R movies, but those kids had been playing Call of Duty and blasting virtual people for years so the movie violence wasn't really an issue.

One weekend we watched Poltergeist, a PG movie, with them and some of their friends. I'll never forget hearing an even younger friend of my friend's youngest son say "this is way less scary than Human Centipede" and all of them instantly agreeing.

This is coming to Netflix in the US in July. Think it's getting regular releases in part of the world.

I like about all the actors I see in this. But it looks dumb. Good dumb? Maybe. I give it 50/50.

Looks like they tried to blend up John Wick with Kingsmen and added in a dash of Harley Quinn. I guess to me it feels like in this trailer they tried to force a bunch of stuff together that may or may not work.

But since there are good people in it and it's on Netflix, I'll watch and see.

EDIT: I hit post, but this must have failed? Hope this isn't a repost.

It is the right level of dumb for me to watch it on Netflix but not in theaters. So I am excited.

MannishBoy wrote:

This is coming to Netflix in the US in July. Think it's getting regular releases in part of the world.

I like about all the actors I see in this. But it looks dumb. Good dumb? Maybe. I give it 50/50.

Looks like they tried to blend up John Wick with Kingsmen and added in a dash of Harley Quinn. I guess to me it feels like in this trailer they tried to force a bunch of stuff together that may or may not work.

But since there are good people in it and it's on Netflix, I'll watch and see.

EDIT: I hit post, but this must have failed? Hope this isn't a repost.

I'm there 100,000%.

Paul Giamatti and Karen Gillan? Yes please!

MannishBoy wrote:

This is coming to Netflix in the US in July. Think it's getting regular releases in part of the world.

I like about all the actors I see in this. But it looks dumb. Good dumb? Maybe. I give it 50/50.

Looks like they tried to blend up John Wick with Kingsmen and added in a dash of Harley Quinn. I guess to me it feels like in this trailer they tried to force a bunch of stuff together that may or may not work.

But since there are good people in it and it's on Netflix, I'll watch and see.

I admire your optimism, but I expect something worse than 'Army of the Dead'. This has all the hallmarks Netflix film-making-by-algorithm. As you say, there's a bit of John Wick, a bit of Kingsman, a bit of Harley Quinn... and then throw in a cast of recognisable-but-not-A-List-expensive actors.

I don't see much different here to (apart from Will Smith, of course), Birdbox, Army of the Dead and all the rest.

And, of course, we're certain to see lots more movies and TV series like these, as more and more content-producers launch their own streaming services and remove content from Netflix.

This week's 'The Economist' carried an interesting article about the Discovery/WarnerMedia merger, and its impact on the video streaming market. (Interestingly, it also noted that Amazon was in talks with MGM. What a difference a week makes!) What caught my eye were the figures on content spending. Apparently, Disney spent about $15 billion last year. Netflix spent almost $12 billion.

Under the Disney banner are Pixar, Star Wars, Nat Geo and Marvel, and - of course - all the Intellectual Property within those brands. I can see where Disney's money is going. But I'm darned if I know what Netflix's budget has bought/created! Does Netflix own any IP of real value?

Or put more simply, does Netflix own anything that can become a Franchise and/or an Expanded Universe? I'm struggling to think of any examples.

It'll be interesting to see how Netflix fares over the next 3 years or so. By then HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+, and Disney+ will be well-established. I'm not sure how attractive Netflix will be at that point, either for consumers or investors. The streaming equivalent of Friends Reunited or MySpace, perhaps?

It may turn out that Neflix should have bought some content-makers/owners, rather than existing content, in the last few years. Time will tell...

As a side note, it's been fascinating to watch Disney using acquisitions to head off their own IP problems. I believe that Mickey Mouse's first incarnation, Steamboat Willie, comes out of copyright in 2024. By buying what they have, when they have, Disney have pushed back future copyright 'crunches' by at least another 50-100 years!

detroit20 wrote:

Or put more simply, does Netflix own anything that can become a Franchise and/or an Expanded Universe? I'm struggling to think of any examples.

Not really, but their strategy doesn't really focus on that to begin with.

Amazon and Netflix have some sort of weird algorithm that's basically all about *new* subscribers. Like does a show/movie lead to additional subscribers? If so, how many? And then as it drops off... they ditch it. It makes sense on a certain level, their logic being that after X time/years most people who wanted to see the thing... already have.

That's why so many shows/series/movies are fairly self-contained. Not many 6 seasons and a movie situations. They're not (for the most part) interested in an expanded universe situation for anything.

When services like Disney+ have such a strong catalog of established IPs, their throw it at the wall and see what sticks strategy does kind of make sense. Then the services end up almost complementary.

detroit20 wrote:

This week's 'The Economist' carried an interesting article about the Discovery/WarnerMedia merger, and its impact on the video streaming market. (Interestingly, it also noted that Amazon was in talks with MGM. What a difference a week makes!) What caught my eye were the figures on content spending. Apparently, Disney spent about $15 billion last year. Netflix spent almost $12 billion.

Netflix has said it's going to drop $17 billion on new content this year.

detroit20 wrote:

Under the Disney banner are Pixar, Star Wars, Nat Geo and Marvel, and - of course - all the Intellectual Property within those brands. I can see where Disney's money is going. But I'm darned if I know what Netflix's budget has bought/created! Does Netflix own any IP of real value?

Or put more simply, does Netflix own anything that can become a Franchise and/or an Expanded Universe? I'm struggling to think of any examples.

Netflix's strategy is to generate new IP rather than milking existing IPs to death like Disney's doing with Star Wars and Marvel.

And it's managed to develop quite a few new IPs that have legs: Stranger Things, The Witcher, Bridgerton, Money Heist/House of Paper, etc.

detroit20 wrote:

It'll be interesting to see how Netflix fares over the next 3 years or so. By then HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+, and Disney+ will be well-established. I'm not sure how attractive Netflix will be at that point, either for consumers or investors. The streaming equivalent of Friends Reunited or MySpace, perhaps?

It may turn out that Neflix should have bought some content-makers/owners, rather than existing content, in the last few years. Time will tell...

Netflix saw the writing on the wall years ago when it came to existing content. They saw it back in 2012 when Starz rejected their $300+ million offer to relicense the streaming rights for 2,500+ movies and shows that Starz licensed to them in 2008 for about $20 million.

Since then Netflix has pumped more and more money into new content, specifically new content that it owns in its entirety. It doesn't need to purchase content-makers/owners because it already is a major content-maker/owner.

Netflix is also locking up creative talent.

Back in 2017 it secured a multi-year deal with Shawna Rhimes, the creator, writer, and EP of hit shows like Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal. Her first project was producing Bridgerton, which racked up buzz, industry acclaim, and 82 million views in the first month after it was released. Rhimes has more than a dozen active projects in development for Netflix.

In 2018 it locked up Ryan Murphy, creator of Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, and more.

And because most of Netflix's new subscribers now are international, Netflix is already *way* ahead of everyone when it comes to international talent. The Spanish creators of its smash hit Money Heist/House of Paper have already developed new programming for Netflix. Netflix is all over German content like Dark and Babylon Berlin, and Tribes of Europa. It has multiple shows coming from Brazil, Japan, South Korea, and more.

Those shows might not be based on yet another superhero or a minor Star Wars character, but they are original IPs that are damned interesting and entertaining. And Netflix owns them. And Netflix has formed relationships with the creators and producers who will make more of them.

At the end of the day we content consumers are in the midst of a Golden Age. Streaming services are dumping a crazy amount of money and talent into new content--a good deal of it that's, well, really good--and a lot of it that would have never been created under the old TV/cable/movie model.

I know they're still the leader, but how long can Netflix maintain creating so much new content without continually jacking up their prices? I’m not sure what it is, but I certainly have a threshold on what I’d pay per month. To me, Netflix is in danger of having a ton of mostly mediocre content instead of a smaller high quality library. They also lost a bit of shine with me over how quickly they’ll cancel a show.

Yeah I'm already not paying $2 extra for 4k, especially when I get it included at Amazon, Disney+ and Hulu

PaladinTom wrote:

I know they're still the leader, but how long can Netflix maintain creating so much new content without continually jacking up their prices? I’m not sure what it is, but I certainly have a threshold on what I’d pay per month. To me, Netflix is in danger of having a ton of mostly mediocre content instead of a smaller high quality library. They also lost a bit of shine with me over how quickly they’ll cancel a show.

But again, that's their entire strategy. If they keep making new content, which leads to more newer subscribers than ones lost in churn, they make more money, and make more shows.

Since they only really care about new eyeballs, and people (currently) will watch anything new-ish, it kinda doesn't matter if the bulk of it is mediocre because long-term accolades isn't their goal.

Another curious side effect of them churning out original (if mostly average-ish) IP is they don't have to worry about how it's licensed in all their markets. They own it, they can show it wherever they want. Instead of weirdness where like Canada will have Star Wars movies or Star Trek and USA won't.

It is interesting to wonder if that approach in terms of using new subscribers as the primary metric will work forever... but it's definitely worked so far. And doesn't show many signs of stopping working anytime soon.

I have Netflix for stuff to run in the background while I do other things, so I'm part of the problem I suppose (in that I'm okay with the bulk of that content being okay as opposed to great.)

Then I have Hulu to catch up on broadcast shows and back catalog stuff.

And I'll subscribe/cancel Disney/HBO/Peacock/Paramount when there's something specific I want to watch.

ccoates wrote:

It is interesting to wonder if that approach in terms of using new subscribers as the primary metric will work forever... but it's definitely worked so far. And doesn't show many signs of stopping working anytime soon.

Depends how they're defining "new" subscribers. If it includes returning subs who cancelled for a while and came back, probably quite a while. If it only includes people who've never subscribed, I'd be surprised if they weren't already nearing saturation.

ccoates wrote:

Then I have Hulu to catch up on broadcast shows and back catalog stuff.

And I'll subscribe/cancel Disney/HBO/Peacock/Paramount when there's something specific I want to watch.

We do the same but Hulu is the one that gets turned off/on when enough TV episodes are queued up for us to watch for a month or two. And we usually turn off Netflix for that time.

Speaking of maybe not the highest quality... the new episodes of Lucifer are out!

Lucifer kind of captures the type of content I use Netflix for. It's pretty dumb overall, but it's also consistently funny and entertaining and has no delusions about where it's punching on the prestige television scale. i.e. it's not, at all, haha.

But for stuff like Army of the Dead, it never captures that "having fun" prioritization or feel truly self-aware (for me, at least), which makes the silly stuff just feel stupid instead of endearing. Especially as dumb choice after dumb plot twist stacks up like many folks have mentioned.

So whereas something like Lucifer kind of owns many of its absurdities (angel baby!), something like Army of the Dead feels like it's trying (and failing, I'm not saying that can't be done) to walk the line between fun and still wanting to be taken seriously (He went to the

Spoiler:

zombie baby

well AGAIN?)

PaladinTom wrote:

I know they're still the leader, but how long can Netflix maintain creating so much new content without continually jacking up their prices? I’m not sure what it is, but I certainly have a threshold on what I’d pay per month. To me, Netflix is in danger of having a ton of mostly mediocre content instead of a smaller high quality library. They also lost a bit of shine with me over how quickly they’ll cancel a show.

And this is where I land, too!

Sure, Netflix has signed deals with content creators around the world, but the results are mixed at best. How many of the shows mentioned by OG_Slinger were actually released in the last year? What stands out about exception successes like Bridgerton is that they are are, well, exceptions. £12 - 17 billion dollars a year for one water-cooler show seems like a very poor return.

But as I said, we'll see.

But again, that's if you consider the only valid return to be a high quality/high accolades show.

McDonald's isn't award winning food in terms of taste or quality, but people everywhere eat it. Even in cities known for fancy cuisine the lines can be ridiculous. The number of markets where McDonald's has failed are fewer than you'd think.

Just because they're not racking up Emmy's or watercooler talk doesn't mean people aren't watching them. Their goal isn't necessarily (more like incidentally) "quality", it's eyeballs on screens.

Here's a related example: there's been huge growth in the romance novel market. One explanation being people are embarrassed to admit they like them, so eBooks are perfect because they never have to, well, interact with a store clerk/librarian/etc. to buy them.

Romance novels as a market outsell mystery/thriller/sci-fi/fantasy *combined*. Mind blowing, right?

I think to get stuck on the idea that only high quality shows are going to yield profits, or even most likely to yield profits, you have to ignore just how commonly that isn't true. We're on what... 6 transformers movies now? Even the empirically worst one still grossed $600 million worldwide. And the Bumblebee spinoff, arguably the highest quality film in that universe... is the lowest grossing one of the bunch by a very, very large margin.

So there's a ceiling, sure. Maybe it will become so terrible, and so expensive, that profits will decline to some unacceptable level. But I don't think current evidence suggests that Michael Bay (or Netflix) is anywhere near it yet.

In case you're worried that Lucifer would end without having a musical episode. Well. Worry no longer. Just watched the cast do a rendition of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust".

hbi2k wrote:

Depends how they're defining "new" subscribers. If it includes returning subs who cancelled for a while and came back, probably quite a while. If it only includes people who've never subscribed, I'd be surprised if they weren't already nearing saturation.

That's an interesting point! I wonder if that's factored in the new subscribers as growth or in the lost subscribers metric as churn.

ccoates wrote:

But again, that's if you consider the only valid return to be a high quality/high accolades show.

McDonald's isn't award winning food in terms of taste or quality, but people everywhere eat it. Even in cities known for fancy cuisine the lines can be ridiculous. The number of markets where McDonald's has failed are fewer than you'd think.

Just because they're not racking up Emmy's or watercooler talk doesn't mean people aren't watching them. Their goal isn't necessarily (more like incidentally) "quality", it's eyeballs on screens...

It's difficult to propose an alternative measure of return/success, because Netflix is notoriously shy about releasing information about "eyeballs on screens". And even when they do release viewing figures, they need to be caveated because of the way that Neflix calculates them.

Netflix counts a “view” as one household watching any given programme for just two minutes. They say that this is "long enough to indicate the choice was intentional.” Previously they measured one view as a user watching 70 per cent of one episode of a TV show or feature film.

(Depending on the content, this might be the opening titles, plus the opening shot.)

I find it hard not raise a Roger Moore-esque eyebrow at this. Why make the change? Why be so coy?

Come on, Neflix! Open the kimono completely!

To use your Transformers example. We can be reasonably sure that most of the people who went to see those movies actually stayed beyond the opening credits. We can have no such certainty with Bridgerton.

Also, it was only two years ago that 'Neflix' spent $100 million dollars to keep airing 'Friends' for an extra year.

I don't see that as a sign of company confident in its ability to create its own compelling new content. I mean, a back of a cigarette packet calculation suggests that's enough for a low budget movie, a couple of pilot episodes of new shows, and at least one additional series of an existing show. (I've seen estimates that Season 1 of 'The Witcher' cost $70-80 million).

And yet, they chose to spend that money on an additional 12 months of rights to a show that ended more than 15 years ago! To me, that feels a little desperate.

I think I'm the only one who really enjoyed Army of the Dead. I went in with the expectation of "I just want to spend a couple hours watching some fun special effects and to turn it really loud". I got both. It's a dumb zombie film, that's great!

Then again, I'm a huge fan of B movies. Sharknado, Thankskilling, Killer Sofa, Velicipastor just to name a few. So my standards are set pretty low to start with.

Those are intentionally bad. Army of the Dead was just a series of bad decisions/writing. There's a difference, IMO.

It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but in a way that's kind of what makes it truly mediocre. It's not bad enough to be so bad it's good. And, well, not good, either.

detroit20 wrote:

Come on, Neflix! Open the kimono completely!

I kind of hate that phrase, but ignoring that, there are ways to succeed beyond the traditional models. Netflix doesn't have the same goals (or restrictions).

Whether their way results in *better* TV, it often doesn't. But in terms of their profits, there's no significant signs that's in any real danger.

I mentioned eyeballs on screens as shorthand for their subscribers, I wasn't starting a tangent on ratings, because in a similar way to how they don't seem to really care about inherent quality, they don't seem to really care about ratings.

If they crunch the numbers and decide that 2 minutes is enough to tell if someone will cancel their subscription (or entice someone to subscribe), then it makes sense that's what they'll keep track of.

If they think reviews will discourage people from watching stuff/signing up (like when they ditched star ratings for a straight thumbs up/thumbs down), and they'll make more money if they get rid of it... they'll get rid of it.

Which they did do, and which annoyed me, but they kind of appear to have been right. They keep growing, people kept watching.

detroit20 wrote:

I don't see that as a sign of company confident in its ability to create its own compelling new content. I mean, a back of a cigarette packet calculation suggests that's enough for a low budget movie, a couple of pilot episodes of new shows, and at least one additional series of an existing show. (I've seen estimates that Season 1 of 'The Witcher' cost $70-80 million).

And yet, they chose to spend that money on an additional 12 months of rights to a show that ended more than 15 years ago! To me, that feels a little desperate.

That's a valid opinion, although I think it repeatedly ignores that in a very real and cynical way their goal is profit, they keep making profit, and things like critical consensus don't seem to be something they care about.

The data you want them to share would be interesting, for sure. But if it wouldn't profit them... why would they bother with it?

If broadcast networks could get away with not sharing that data, they probably wouldn't. Their model still involves advertisements and other factors that rely on that kind of data in a way Netflix doesn't, so that's not really an option, but it's a good example of why trying to directly compare the two doesn't make sense.

The Friends example is also a more interesting case than you're letting on. Because at the time they paid it, Netflix was the only place you could see Friends. If they crunched the numbers and decided that they'd keep enough subscribers to make $100 million worth it, it makes total sense they'd pony up the money.

In the current field where Disney+ and HBO Max (and more streaming competition in general) exist, that same math probably wouldn't add up (and must not have, since they didn't continue to license it). But you're applying a 2 year old licensing deal to their current strategy and that just doesn't track, IMO.

ccoates wrote:

I mentioned eyeballs on screens as shorthand for their subscribers, I wasn't starting a tangent on ratings, because in a similar way to how they don't seem to really care about inherent quality, they don't seem to really care about ratings.

And yet for a company that doesn't care about ratings, they've release ratings figures occasionally.

ccoates wrote:

If they crunch the numbers and decide that 2 minutes is enough to tell if someone will cancel their subscription (or entice someone to subscribe), then it makes sense that's what they'll keep track of.

But Neflix themselves haven't offered this as an explanation. In their annual letter to shareholders in 2019, they say the following:

"Given that we now have titles with widely varying lengths - from short episodes (e.g. Special at around 15 minutes) to long films (e.g. The Highwaymen at 132 minutes), we believe that reporting households viewing a title based on 70% of a single episode of a series or of an entire film, which we have been doing, makes less sense.

We are now reporting on households (accounts) that chose to watch a given title . Our new methodology is similar to the BBC iPlayer in their rankings based on “requests” for the title, “most popular” articles on the New York Times which include those who opened the articles, and YouTube view counts. This way, short and long titles are treated equally, leveling the playing field for all types of our content including interactive content, which has no fixed length. The new metric is about 35% higher on average than the prior metric. For example, 45m member households chose to watch Our Planet under the new metric vs. 33m under the prior metric."

The Verge had a nice take on this change of metric, saying:

"To put that number in perspective, two minutes of The Witcher is less time than it takes to reach the opening credits of the first episode; the action-packed cold opening is coincidentally two minutes and 16 seconds

By Netflix’s new metric, anyone who watched just the opening scene of the episode (or 3.2 percent of the total runtime of the episode, which is itself one of eight episodes) is now counted as a view for the entire season."

At the end of the day, I''m a Netflix customer and a broadly happy one at that. But I can see storm clouds ahead if they can't improve the quality and quantity of their own productions

They have gotten to where they are largely without facing much competition. That's no longer the case in the US, where one consultancy estimates that they're market share has fallen from 29% to 20% in 2020.

(Indeed, most of the growth of Netflix's subscriber base has taken place in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. The US and Canada now form just over a third of Netflix’s subscriber base, compared to over half at the start of 2018. No doubt this one of the reasons why they're now investing so heavily in overseas content.)

But eventually they'll be squeezed by competition overseas too. When Neftlix began streaming in 2007, we had only one streaming service in the UK: BBC's iPlayer. We now have at least 7 by count. I don't doubt that the picture is similar across Europe now.

You're absolutely right that Netflix is a profit-making machine right now (although its free cash flow is an issue). I'm just not convinced that its current content strategy bodes well for the future.

As I said earlier, for many years MySpace was the most visited website in North America and the largest social network on the planet. It's still around, of course. But it has long been overtaken by the compeition. My suspicion is that Netflix might suffer the same fate in 3 years time.

Hot Take: Lucifer is Charmed but sexier.

For what it's worth, I think the real reason that Neflix guards its ratings figures so closely is commercial. They don't want content-makers to be able to compare the ratings of what Neflix buys versus what Neflix makes. They are afraid that content makers will raise their prices if it were clear that 'bought' were outperforming 'made'.

Mixolyde wrote:

Hot Take: Lucifer is Charmed but sexier.

Ha! I've always viewed Charmed more Buffy-esque. Monster of the week. Lucifer being more of a very, very silly police procedural.

I'm really enjoying season 5b. It's been pretty ridiculous. Dennis Haysbert as god and the petty family squabbling was funny. Not the most original take, but criticisms like how Lucifer doesn't have a desk made me laugh out loud. The musical episode. They just had an episode with Dan's "worst day" that was pretty fun. I don't know that's it's the series at its peak, but I'm really gonna miss this show.

Edit: AHHH! I just Googled it and they're gonna do a 10-episode season 6. I had no idea. This show has really had kind of a wacky production history.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead will be joining the cast too, lol.

Dude, guys, Netflix knows exactly how long you streamed every one of their shows going all the way back to the beginning of the service. They know when you watch, they know what you scroll through and how long you linger on different choices. They've got solid algorithms for disaggregating lingering and interest from "I was away from the TV". They do constant A/B testing on the little show images to see which are most effective at getting you to watch. They know exactly when you gave up on a show and they probably have a conceptual model of what plot/story/pacing elements caused you to give up.

The two minute thing is a BS metric that they came up with so that they can put it in their public facing documents. It's just a shiny distraction for credulous investors and journalists to make them think that they understand how the black box works.

And aside from the fact that Netflix IS successful. I would rather them spend billions on content than inflate executive compensation further.

Mixolyde wrote:

Hot Take: Lucifer is Charmed but sexier.

This explains why Mrs Sorb likes to so much.

hbi2k wrote:
ccoates wrote:

It is interesting to wonder if that approach in terms of using new subscribers as the primary metric will work forever... but it's definitely worked so far. And doesn't show many signs of stopping working anytime soon.

Depends how they're defining "new" subscribers. If it includes returning subs who cancelled for a while and came back, probably quite a while. If it only includes people who've never subscribed, I'd be surprised if they weren't already nearing saturation.

Netflix only publicly counts paid subscribers, which they consider anyone who signs up and provides a valid method of payment. I'm quite sure that internally they track who's leaving and returning and have a wealth of data on those subscribers.

Netflix added a record 36.6 million paid subscribers in 2020. About 30 million of those came from subscribers *outside* of US/Canada where they already have 74 million subscriptions. They might be reaching a bit of saturation in this market, especially considering account sharing, but their numbers are still growing.

They also have the lowest monthly "churn" of subscribers among streaming services, with 2.5% of existing subscribers pausing or canceling their subscriptions.

detroit20 wrote:

Sure, Netflix has signed deals with content creators around the world, but the results are mixed at best. How many of the shows mentioned by OG_Slinger were actually released in the last year? What stands out about exception successes like Bridgerton is that they are are, well, exceptions. £12 - 17 billion dollars a year for one water-cooler show seems like a very poor return.

Last year everyone was talking about a gd documentary about a platinum blonde mullet-wearing idiot who kept a bunch of tigers. I mean if that doesn't prove that no one really knows what show will become a hit or not or that only "quality" programming will attract people I don't know what will.

And that was just the show that was popular in the US. I have no idea what the water-cooler shows were in other regions, but looking at Netflix's international subscriber growth they are clearly making shows that people want to watch.

detroit20 wrote:

Come on, Neflix! Open the kimono completely!

Come on Amazon and Walmart and every company that tracks and uses consumer data! Show your competition exactly how you use that information to gain an advantage!

I honestly don't care how many people watched a particular Netflix show. Those are outdated metrics that are holdovers from broadcast TV and only mattered because advertisers wanted to know how many eyeballs their money was buying. And if you've ever dug into how broadcast viewership numbers are counted with services like Nielsen you'd doubt them as much as you doubt Netflix's.

detroit20 wrote:

And yet for a company that doesn't care about ratings, they've release ratings figures occasionally.

They exist in an industry where entertainment-specific media reports show ratings on a daily basis and that continually runs articles about the "X best Y shows of all time." Of course they're going to occasionally release some information about their viewership statistics.

HBO, another subscription service that doesn't really give a f*ck about ratings, also occasionally releases viewership information for certain tent-pole shows. It's kinda part of the standard marketing campaign to hype a show: "[Seeming big number] of people are watching this show. So should you. Don't get left out/be the uncool kid!"

detroit20 wrote:

At the end of the day, I''m a Netflix customer and a broadly happy one at that. But I can see storm clouds ahead if they can't improve the quality and quantity of their own productions

Quality is entirely in the eye of the viewer, though. Hell, there isn't even a universal definition of "quality." That, too, depends on your personal tastes.

Sometimes I want to watch something that's completely new and different (for me). Sometimes I want something that's challenging with a complex story and characters. Sometimes I want background noise or something that's just going to distract me from reality at the moment.

Netflix has all of that and my queue is still jammed with shows and movies I'm probably never going to get around to watching. And it has shows that I absolutely enjoyed that I never even knew existed even though I loved similar shows.

I mean Money Heist/House of Paper is one of my favorite shows and I had to find out from a friend that the creator made another show, Sky Rojo, that I also watched and also loved. I had no idea that I *really* wanted a story about a Berlin vice squad detective during the rise of Hitler, but I do. I also really want what's basically a telenovela that takes place on an ocean liner right before WWII breaks out. And incredibly absurd comedies by an SNL writer who barely got anything on air or a group of Australians who previously made YouTube videos.

There's *way* more content on Netflix than I'm ever going to get around to watching or would want to watch and that's kinda the point.

But right now I'm just going to enjoy watching programming that I would never be able to see on broadcast or cable TV both because no one would take the risk to make it or some entertainment executive would say I wouldn't watch it because it wasn't made in America and the actors didn't speak English.

Could Netflix theoretically f*ck things up in the future? Absolutely. So can Disney or HBO or every entertainment company that's in or getting in the streaming business.

OG_slinger wrote:
detroit20 wrote:

At the end of the day, I''m a Netflix customer and a broadly happy one at that. But I can see storm clouds ahead if they can't improve the quality and quantity of their own productions

Quality is entirely in the eye of the viewer, though. Hell, there isn't even a universal definition of "quality." That, too, depends on your personal tastes.

1000x this. Not to mention there's been a lot of extrapolation based on some tastes here from a single movie. The idea this is possible is ludicrous.