I’m not sure I’d say that ‘Stranger Things’ helps illustrate the flaws in Netflix’s strategy:
Last year, Netflix shelled out more than $12 billion to purchase, license and produce content. This year, that figure will rise to $15 billion. It will spend $2.9 billion more on marketing. These costs come as Netflix is expected to report $20.2 billion in revenue in 2019, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
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From 2012 to 2016, Netflix subscriptions in the U.S. grew about 5% each year and spiked by 10% in 2017. However, in 2018, domestic memberships only grew about 3.6%.
Internationally, Netflix has grown its subscriptions to nearly 81 million, up from just 1.86 million in 2011. Since 2015, the company has seen double digit growth in this area. Altogether, the company has just under 150 million subscribers.
Also, of the top 20 most watched shows on Netflix, six are “originals,” but only one of those are actually owned by the company, according to data from Nielsen and Pachter.
I knew I was odd, but I guess I don’t watch any of Netflix’s top shows.
Same here, except I watched a couple seasons of Shameless with the wife. She went on to finish the whole thing. The wife was one of 12 kids in a poor Central Valley Latino and mixed-race household, and the show’s depiction of the behavior patterns of the American underclass was spot-on. Decent scripts, and great acting, too.
Some of it seemed outrageous to friends, but my wife and I were able to counter such observations with even more outrageous true-life tales about my in-laws or her childhood. Viz.: https://www.softgreenglow.com/wp/2012/01/disability-king-update-watch-your-blood-pressure/
I have not watched any of the top 20 either. I may have gotten a few minutes as someone else watched them, but never said to myself, “I gotta see this.”
Likewise. I’ve seen a few episodes of Office, Friends, Shameless, 70s Show and the Walking Dead, but nowhere near the whole run of any of them.
My younger kids have spent a fair amount of Boss Baby and PJ Masks, so there’s that. Older kids watched Flash.
My wife has watched all of at least five of those.
Surprised that none of the Marvel shows made the list. Those, and Stranger Things, are the only originals from Netflix that I’ve really enjoyed.
Of the “Top 20″, I’ve watched…
The first season and a half of Supernatural.
The first three episodes of Flash.
The first half dozen episodes of The Ranch.
The first four episodes of Once Upon a Time.
I seem to be something of an outlier on this one.
Although I’ve only ever had basic plus cable and no internet-based, satellite or pay services, and in the past few years treat tv more like I once treated radio [background noise] I’ve seen many of those shows, usually when or if they aired on broadcast tv.
The Office I never much cared for. Attempted avant-garde sarcasm comedy wore out for me with Seinfeld. But I’ve seen more than a few eps.
Friends- the entire run, many, many, many times over. Watched since it started originally, now regard it as the most soothing possible backgrounder. Still mildly funny, still loveable if occasionally annoying characters. Much better than most sitcoms on balancing the sit with the com. Only Cheers or Frasier it’s equals. Hey- they were neurotic, New Yorker, hip urban wannabe Gen Xers. But still a branch of my generational tribe. And since the show has come under recent fire for being racist, cisheteronormative, pro-marriage, pro-reproduction and so on, a relic of what some consider the reactionary (!) 1990s, I feel I have to keep flying the old flag.
Never really watched Grey’s Anatomy. Saw a few. I preferred hospital soap operas that focused less on one female lead. ER, say. NCIS I have seen most of the first decade or more [Airing since 2003 more or less]. Wearied of its rah rah attitude a few years back, plus some character changes. Criminal Minds, more or less the same experience. The actor who hauled off and kicked some producer was the heart of the show so when he was fired, I was out.
I’ve seen a lot of Supernatural, but the premise got tired years ago. P and R was an okay sitcom, quirky without being ostentatiously avant garde. FLash, watched some, tired of PC superheroes quickly. That 70s Show, watched when it was on. Tired rapidly of a paean to late 70s stoner teens. I was an 80s teen.
The Walking Dead, watched the first 7 or so seasons, then tired suddenly and rapidly of it. I would watch its finale if they announced in advance that all characters would be horribly massacred and all their struggles retroactively for naught.
Once Upon a Time I tired of after one episode.
Huh. I guess that’s only eleven of twenty, even counting partial acquaintance. I have been aware of most of the other ten but either uninterested or unable to access them.
I don’t understand why anyone would watch Fuller House. I enjoyed many of the mild family sitcoms of the 80s- Family Ties was excellent, others were serviceable, some bland and tedious, sure. But Full House was the blandest, most tedious of the lot. Of all the things our imitative age should recreate, that was not among them.
Earlier this year I watched a fair bit of Netflix’s take on Marvel vigilante The Punisher.
It is well made on all elements of tv show making, acting very much included.
Eventually it became obvious that it was yet another vehicle for the 21st century version of Marvel Comics Politics, gelling in print since the 60s and dominant in their visual content. I was out. Don’t care what happens to the characters.
I can’t think of any recent television, aside from Justified, that I found compelling and/or entertaining enough to bother turning on the TV for.
Good Omens and the other UK-based Pratchett television and films, yes. Much else? Nope. No point to it–It’s all derivative crap that you can see the entire outline for as soon as you get five minutes into it.
Modern entertainment has gotten to the point where it’s like that joke about the prison camp inmates, where the setup is the new guy coming in, and the work gang he’s put on has been together for so many years that they no longer tell the jokes themselves, just assigning them all number. His first day is a litany of someone saying “Number five!”, everyone laughing, then someone else saying “Number seventeen!”, to gales of laughter. Finally, he can’t stand it, and asks what the hell is so funny, which is when it is explained to him. Wanting to fit in, later in the day, he says “Number nine!”, and nobody laughs. He is confused and asks why nobody laughed at him, to be told that it was only funny if you told it right… And, he hadn’t.
That’s modern entertainment in a nutshell. There are so many damn tropes and shorthands for things that it’s really not all that good, plus you have to keep coming up with the novel in order to really get anyone’s attention. Which then leads to the critical audience going “This is crap… They’re just being unconventional for the sake of being unconventional…”.
Most TV is bad.
I am somewhat curious what happens when Disney starts pulling more content from Netflix to do their own thing because good God Netflix has had some pretty unwatchable “original” series, and I am not referring to foreign stuff that get exclusive US rights to.
I noticed a couple of taking cancelled network shows and calling them originals. Arrested Development, Lucifer, Designated Survivor. Who knows, they might become scavengers of “cult favorites”
Just got back from a two week cruise. Wife & I signed up for a table for eight so had two weeks of eating supper with three other couples. All of us were in our 70s and retired: an engineer & nurse, 20 year serving Marine then postal worker & postal worker wife, and Boeing tool & die maker with House Wife spouse. Two week with no politics so all ended friends. Never a discussion of books except once where some “best sellers” were touted.
Netflix was brought up in conversation. All of the three couples were Netflix users, all binge watched & the binging involved old TV shows not movies or original content.
This year I switched my cell phone carrier from AT&T to T-Mobile and received “free” Netflix. I watch virtually no TV but heard of a Netflix movie to watch called The Highwaymen–a Bonnie & Clyde story. I watched it and enjoyed the take on the yarn: B &C killed without mercy and were in turn killed without mercy. At dinner with the group I mentioned the movie to them and nobody said that they saw it. I told then the plot contrasting it with that of the 70′s movie Bonny & Clyde where the pair were romanticized. With my description of the movie, The Highwayman, all three couples said that they had watched the movie but forgotten it. My guess is that these retired individuals are anesthetized by the volume of TV entertainment supplied by Netflix, which offers a fire hose of streaming choices, to their homes. I have been back from the cruise for ten days and have not had the time to watch any TV yet but I suspect the three couples have been sitting daily watching hours of forgettable Netflix offerings and probably hours of other cable tv content.
It appears that Netflix is supplying what the retirees want.
Dan Kurt