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Ask HN: Why doesn't Netflix produce more of its most popular shows?
For example, why doesn't it release a Black Mirror episode weekly for the entire year every year?
- akerl_ 3y agoI would assume it’s a combination of “that’s how you kill a series” and “nobody decent wants to act in a series that never stops filming.” At an episode a week, you run out of plot way faster, and your humans are basically signing on to have no other work.
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoYou mean, like almost every other person on the planet with this weird thing called a “steady job”?
- dragontamer 3y agoTV serial actors are a different cut than super-stars in Hollywood. You aren't going to attract the superstars with a "steady job". There are some incredibly talented TV serial actors however.
- BeetleB 3y agoBeing a main actor in a typical show is often a lot more grueling than a "steady job". Definitely not 40 hours a week stuff. When I learned of their schedule, I actually felt the opposite of OP: They should get better work/life balance and a season should be only about 12 episodes.
- gbear605 3y agoThere are lots of “contractors” in the tech world, that are brought on for a project and then move onto something else. It makes sense because they can be there for an important project that they can really contribute towards and then move on to another big project. If an actor is really famous and a lot of movies want them, it’d be selfish of them to just stick on one project for years, even if they’re really good at it.
- akerl_ 3y agoIt feels like you’re trying to snark, but in case you’re earnestly trying to have a discussion: No, “almost every other person on the planet” doesn’t have a “steady job” in the way you’re implying. There are portions of the workforce that work a 9-5 full time position. There are others that do contract work where they’re temporarily focused fully on one job for a short time span, and also contractors/consultants who take smaller time commitments and work multiple contracts at the same time. This isn’t just a tech thing, it’s true across many industries.
- tomjen3 3y agoThe standard used to be about 22 episodes a year, so that is an episode every two weeks. Many shows ran for at least 5 years, and some ran forever (days of our lives would be one example). So I don't think that is the problem. What is the issue is that Netflix wants to drag you in with a few big hits and then satiate you with much cheaper shows. Unfortunately that doesn't work because they don't have a massive content library, but they still act and price themselves as if they did.
- mupuff1234 3y agoHave you seen the latest black mirror season? Spoiler alert: it's pretty bad. But in more seriousness, I'm sure they are trying to optimize for producing the least amount of content in order to retain existing users.
- shrimpx 3y ago> it's pretty bad I found it refreshing that they broadened away from “computer horror” which had started to get worn out. Now it’s closer to a modern twilight zone or outer limits.
- x86x87 3y agoI guess I like "pretty bad" things. Out of the 5 episodes imho only one is mediocre (would not even call it bad). The other 4 are great with 2 of them being exceptional. Go watch them!
- mupuff1234 3y agoI've watched the first two, they were at best 6/10 in my book. I'll probably watch the 3rd since I heard it's slightly better, but then plan on cancelling my subscription.
- godtoldmetodoit 3y agoIt gets worse after that, the first two episodes were definitely the strongest imo.
- polotics 3y agoThis kind of evaluation, ie. "it is pretty bad" is where experience have told me that unless I know the person giving feedback, predictive power on how much I will agree is zero. What is bad? I watched just one episode so far and loved it, are all the other rehashes of previous themes with obvious low budget and bad actors?
- brucethemoose2 3y agoEven with infinite funding, hits are not something that just scale up infinitely. Talented showrunners, cast and other production staff only have so many hours they can work before burning out/running things into the ground, and you can't duplicate them with more hires. The standard strategy is to fund spinoffs of popular franchises. Marvel is a good example of this taken to the extreme, where there literally is a constant content stream.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y agoIt probably doesn't apply to Black Mirror, but you can do real worldbuilding in a show that goes 25 episodes/year that you can't do in 10 episodes. And some shows/genres really benefit from that, becoming something more than the sum of their individual episodes. Many modern shows miss out by rushing through a self contained story in a short season. But if I understand Black Mirror correctly, it's an anthology without a shared world/characters. There'd be diminishing returns much sooner with additional episodes. There's only so much to say about that theme. And we're living it every week anyway.
- aflag 3y agoIt is an anthology. But it's all about stretching our technology to its limits and looking at the societal/philosophical consequences. So, the source material is limited. You can produce episodes faster than technology changes. And niche and really experimental technology that people generally don't have access to is not as appealing either.
- dsr_ 3y agoIn Hollywood -- and Netflix is definitely Hollywood now -- nobody knows anything. William Goldman said it. If they could invest in only the hits, they would. If they could reliably improve their customers' happiness with their service, at minimal cost, they would. If they could cut down on the expense of actors and sets and writers, they would.
- tessierashpool 3y agoand since paying talent less is the only one of those things which is easy to figure out, that’s the one the executives focus on. recently a lot of Netflix’s most successful shows had deals where the creative team got paid more with each successive season. someone at Netflix set this up to incentivize binge-able shows, but since then, someone else decided it cost too much. so a lot of popular shows got canceled.
- nicce 3y ago> If they could invest in only the hits, they would. Apple TV has been quite good for this. There isn't really bad show so far.
- extra88 3y ago'Invasion' was so slow, all the characters on 'The Shrink Next Door' so unlikeable, I regret the time I spent watching both of them. I normally don't give up on shows and at least watch seasons to the end but I stopped after the second episode of 'Hello Tomorrow!' (on paper, it should be a winner for me).
- atombender 3y agoI agree that they've done well, but they've had plenty of clunkers even at this stage. I was deeply disappointed by The Big Door Prize, for example, an unimaginative and saccharine soap for the Oprah Book Club crowd. Plenty of other shows were disappointing to me: Shrinking, Loot, See, Dr. Brain, Liaison, Dr. Corman. Some people liked them, of course.
- aflag 3y agoAt some point the content will become repetitive and uninteresting, unless you keep changing it. Then, you'll essentially have a new show with the same name. Look at the simpsons, for instance. It's still popular, but I consider it to be a completely different show from when it started.
- sulam 3y agoIt takes more than a week to produce one of those episodes. Think about all the weekly shows you know. Are any of them scripted, highly produced affairs like Black Mirror? There’s a reason all high quality popular weeklies are talk, sports, or reality TV. Yes you can do a sitcom weekly for a long time, but the sets are largely static along with the characters. Production values are also limited compared to something like Orange is… or Black Mirror.
- jedberg 3y agoProduction companies can't produce content that quickly. Back in the day we had weekly sitcoms, and it took about a week to produce each episode. But for the most part they all took place in one or just a few locations, and usually those were sets on a sound stage. So all they had to do was churn out a script a week (which is no easy task) using the same characters and same actors. The writers usually had a "show bible" that has elaborate backstories for every character that they could draw from, as well as knowing the actor playing the character and sometimes even getting input from them. There is a reason people would complain that "every week is the same story!". That's because the constraints of the medium meant that you had to keep deviations to a minimum. Black Mirror is akin to making a movie for every episode. Every episode has different actors, which means they need to be cast. They have different locations, which means they need to be scouted or built. They have different characters which means a lot more work for writing because every character needs a backstory. Basically they have to start fresh for every episode. Something like Stranger Things is sort of 1/2 way between -- they have their characters and actors, but they have a lot of locations, and the story varies wildly from episode to episode. Each season is like making a really long movie. And that's just the production side of it. From the business side it doesn't make a lot of sense either. The whole point is to provide fresh content for users. If you can provide a new show every month, that's a lot more compelling than a new episode of the same show.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoDifferent cast, different set, and different characters all seem to make it easier to horizontally scale production. Other than the financing side of things, why couldn't independent production companies simply make different episodes? Perhaps there are not enough production companies that have that ability?
- sosodev 3y agoI wish Netflix would produce more of its niche shows. There are so many shows with diehard fans that Netflix produces a season or two of and then cancels.
- Apreche 3y agoMaking more shows costs more money. More shows don't increase revenues when you have a subscription model. Their ideal model is to produce the bare minimum amount of content that keeps people from unsubscribing.
- whatyesaid 3y agoBlack Mirror is largely written by one guy, that's why. It's better they make Black Mirror the highest quality. That way, in 20 years, people will watch it, it will be new to them, and still hold up. Build an evergreen catalogue. Nobody is watching old sitcoms, but new people watch Lost everyday even though that also got badly affected by quantity requirements due to hype of the day.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago> Nobody is watching old sitcoms, but new people watch Lost everyday even though that also got badly affected by quantity requirements due to hype of the day. That's funny because I know multiple people who re-watched Seinfeld and Curb multiple times, but I haven't heard anyone talk about Lost ever since it ended.
- whatyesaid 3y agoThe interesting thing about sitcoms is I've never heard anyone talk about a new sitcom in years (maybe Brooklyn Nine Nine?), maybe people are rewatching Seinfeld, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Office, etc as those are the only good ones we have. The entertainment is also different since a sitcom doesn't require much attention and is much more bingeable whereas regular shows are hit-or-miss. But still you can't really mass produce Black Mirror or other shows without them going super downhill. Already for Black Mirror the episodes are always ranked by quality, by season and all-in-all. You mass produce these kinds of TV shows and you end up with The Walking Dead which just takes on a repeat of the same thing.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoI feel you both may be in a bubble; as far as I can tell, the two evergreen sitcoms general audience keeps rewatching are Friends and How I Met Your Mother. Those two shows just refuse to die.
- solumunus 3y agoBecause the quality would be dreadful. That suggestion is insane.
- petee 3y agoIt takes roughly 8 days to shoot a half-hour, and 10-12 days for an hour long episode. And that doesn't include 1-3 months pre-production. Crews work 12-18 hour days to make it happen as well; burnout is real. It's also incredibly expensive, something Netflix some how disregarded when they decided to make/own most their own content. Thus the excess of low production quality shows
- cesarvarela 3y agoThe quamputer has not been finished yet.