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> FX chief John Landgraf [...] "How will you determine if something's a hit?" The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it'
by corin_ 14y ago
> FX chief John Landgraf [...] "How will you determine if something's a hit?"
The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not?
> Remember, with a subscription costing about $100 a year, adding 10 million subscribers over the next few years would bring in an addition $1 billion to Netflix's coffers.
Am I missing something, or is this the most irrelevant sentence ever written in journalistic context? Genuine question. (Not to mention the fact that it seems to mix annual subscriptions to a one-off bank-balance boost?)
- sliverstorm 14y agoThe real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not? If they can prove it was a hit, that's good marketing material.
- alaskamiller 14y agoWould be classier if they don't, great speaks for itself. But I don't doubt they would share the numbers when they re-pitch every top tier Hollywood talent.
- zecho 14y agoInvestors would very much like to know how their $4 million dollar per episode investment is panning out.
- jonursenbach 14y agoIt also encourages other streaming companies to follow suit with more original content.
- corin_ 14y agoHow is Netflix not using something for marketing purposes a problem for us or for FX? Sure, there's arguments for releasing it, but I don't see any arguments for that "but it's my right to know!" feeling.
- gwern 14y agoInvestors might want to know. Consider the social utility of not propping up (via ignorance & secrecy) the stock price on a company that is cratering.
- corin_ 14y agoYeah they might, but since when have companies given out every single aspect of their private information just to appease investors?
- cwilson 14y agoExactly. I tell my investors lots of things I don't put on our website or pitch a reporter with, especially if it's part of a long-tail strategy.
- gwern 14y agoIsn't that pretty much the point of the entire elaborate SEC apparatus of reporting requirements? Making companies disgorge private information to enable the markets to judge them?
- lazerwalker 14y ago> The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not? If you're in the media journalism industry (as, say, a writer at Vulture), of course you want to know whether it's a hit or not. Ratings numbers are the perfect excuse to write weekly opinion pieces about how Netflix is doomed/thriving to drum up pageviews.
- corin_ 14y agoMaybe I wasn't clear enough in my question - actually no, I was: why does anyone need to know, not want to know. Like in my two examples about why FX and I might want to know, journalists might also want to know, and again there's plenty of things they want to know without having a right to know.
- zecho 14y agoThere are quite a few ways to answer your question, so I'll do my best to address all of them that come to mind. First, why does anyone need to know anything? There's a favorite passage of mine in Walden about news being gossip, and those that read it being women over their tea, which cuts to the trivial nature of most news, but Thoreau failed to recognize some things because his focus was on living his own life and not worrying about the lives of others. He had no use for the type of information he derides, but never acknowledged that others may have use for such information. So, with that in mind, let's think about this from a few perspectives beyond our own myopia. The audience. Audience can be broken down into various sub-groups, but I will focus on the likeliest readers of Vulture. Media professionals may need to know this information because this information gives them greater insight into their own work. If Netflix produced and distributed a popular show in a novel way, I would very much like to know details like exactly how popular this show has been. Media consumers may like to know this information as well. If a new show (let's call it Jumping Off A Bridge) airs and it is reported that 5 million people watched, perhaps the show is good. If 5 million people are watching Jumping Off A Bridge, perhaps I would enjoy Jumping Off A Bridge, too. Such is the world of entertainment news, which is most definitely not hard news, but clearly has an audience. (Let's also not forget that audience is what advertisers want.) Which gets me to why journalists would need this information. There is a particular news value called magnitude. If something affects a large portion of their audience, then the news should be reported. As Vulture is a media blog, of course their audience is likely the one or both of the subgroups I mentioned above. However, this information has little value on, say, the front page of The Minneapolis Star Tribune or even most pages of The New York Times, as the number of viewers could not possibly affect a sizable number of their readers in general. Cultural proximity matters. Do journalists have a right to know this information? Sometimes, sometimes not. That's really irrelevant to journalists. The purpose of their work is to provide relevant information to their target audience, whether that is tech start ups or the 112 people of Podunk, Kansas or the citizens of the United States who expect and need a fourth estate as watchdog over its governing bodies.
- dfc 14y ago"Am I missing something, or is this the most irrelevant sentence ever written in journalistic context? Genuine question." Really? I cannot believe that is a genuine question. You actually think that there is more than a 1 in 1,000 (or 1 in 10, you pick the odds) chance of that being the most irrelevant sentence ever written?
- corin_ 14y agoI was clearly being somewhat hyperbolic, my "genuine question" was assigned to "Am I missing something", as in that wasn't rhetorical, I really want to know if that sentence is as stupid as I think it is. (And even within my hyperbole, you missed my "in journalistic context"!)
- dfc 14y agoSomewhat? Moreover, I caught your "in journalistic context[sic]" and I still thought your hyperbole was comical. It was almost as if you were attempting some sort of existential/postmodern parody of the original sentence by writing something that was even more absurd and irrelevant. Fluff journalism is all around us; a sentence that brings up the poorly understood economics of an expensive TV serial produced by a dotcom is hardly the most irrelevant sentence written in the last week, let alone ever.
- corin_ 14y agoI'm not sure why you felt the need for that "[sic]".
- dfc 14y agoI felt the need to use "[sic]" because that is the correct way to identify an intentionally transcribed error (An error in any context outside of twitter and txt speak).
- corin_ 14y agoI'm aware of its meaning, I was asking why you felt the need to use it. Admittedly I'm pretty tired, but I'm not seeing the error you noticed. Side note for when you've pointed out my error: in many places [sic] is extremely useful, in contexts such as this it serves as a rather passive aggressive way of complaining about a typo.