3 ms·
Are you sure you are not judging by the standards of mass market ad supported broadcast production vs what these companies seem to be doing in terms of producin
by sfifs 5y ago
Are you sure you are not judging by the standards of mass market ad supported broadcast production vs what these companies seem to be doing in terms of producing content for long tail of smaller but still profitable subscription interest based target audiences?
In the broadcast world, the relevant "inventory" (ie. TV Network Channel time slot) is very limited. Therefore only content with production quality that appeals to a large enough audience to attract advertisers gets greenlit. There's no such limitations in subscription supposed the digital content delivery (aka OTT) economic model. You only have to get sufficient audience to at least recoup your production costs and the minimal per stream delivery costs.
In the past year, my family has binge watched "blown away" a glass blowing competition, 3 series about weird/exotic vacation rentals/hotels, 2 children's mysteries serises, standup comedy by specific comediens, a series about music production and composition styles of different artists and a series about design. All of these above ran multiple seasons, so clearly there's sufficient profitable viewership for multiple seasons to be made even though it's very likely NONE of them would make mainstream broadcast TV. We didn't see any of the "big/popular" shows which do make it to broadcast TV. I'm very sure there are enough households like mine that drives multiple seasons of the above "niche" shows.
The only reason we have cable / broadcast TV connection at all now is when my parents or in-laws visit, they get very bored without their regular TV channels.
- autokad 5y agothis 'long tail' discussion has been a huge fallacy. if you look at the type of content netflix is trying to produce, its really not that diverse. its mostly very left leaning dystopian. They also operate very much like a broadcast TV station in the way they cancel shows very fast despite not having limits of airtime slots. while you site a few cherry picked series that lasted a few years, netflix is really quick to cancel shows. Honestly the original content Netflix spits out has less diversity than broad cast tv, and they have about as much patience to keep those shows 'on the air'.
- notafraudster 5y agoNetflix is not especially quick to cancel shows. The modal broadcast show got 1 season pretty consistently during the entire broadcast era. Most years the first cancelled broadcast show occurs after 1-2 episodes have aired. Netflix does tend to leave shows with fewer episodes than traditional broadcast runs because the new norm is 8-10 episodes per season rather than 22-26; this has been reflected in significantly higher per-episode budgets, a much broader and deeper talent pool on screen, and a move towards serialized storytelling that started with HBO. Netflix actually has extremely diverse programming on all levels. By genre, by budget, by language, by subject matter, by age rating, by quality, Netflix covers absolutely every quadrant. What is "left leaning dystopian"? Never mind, I don't want to know. It's embarrassing.
- pixl97 5y agoMaking shows cost money, and opportunity costs for the actors. When a Netflix show is cancelled they don't delete it, you can still watch the existing episodes unlike broadcast TV.
- watwut 5y agoEnding shows is better then milking the same show ad infinity.