WordsAreSomething t1_j5tw72b wrote
This post is built on a misinterpretation of what was said. The entire quote is relating viewing metrics to budgets. So unless you are doing the same it's pointless. A show could have a huge audience but if it costs aot than the bar for renewal will naturally be higher.
A show like 1899 by all reports was not cheap, and relative to other shows the viewing numbers weren't that impressive.
lennydykstra17 t1_j5ty10a wrote
Their biggest number is completion rate. With 1899 their numbers showed about 30% finishing the show, with most viewers falling off by episode 3. I'd have to look for the previous source on this but they care about people actually finishing a season of a show to see what's worth renewing a second season.
Archamasse t1_j5u4jwj wrote
1899 wasn't a show I wanted to rush. I wanted to pace it out and marinate in it a little.
While I was doing that, it was cancelled, so now I'm just never going to complete it at all, nor rewatch it. It's pointless.
So for a viewer like me, Netflix's entire investment in it has instantly gone down the drain. And I'm a little less likely to bother with their next big ticket project, in case the same happens to it too.
Early completion rate is easily measurable, but is it useful? People don't like Netflix's all-in-one-go releases because they want to sit down for ten hours in a row, they like it because they can watch the whole lot at precisely the pace that suits them. Netflix's tunnel vision penalizes them, and the shows that suit that kind of viewing best.
I don't think their apparent 2 week completion rate obsession makes sense, at least not for every show - not least because stuff like "Viewer trust that the next show won't be cancelled too" can't be measured in it, but absolutely have an effect on the service's appeal.
Netflix isn't like a regular "live" channel, nobody catches something serendipitously in syndication. They have to actively select it. Show by show these decisions probably feel like they make sense, but they've ended up with a library of dead ends nobody will ever bother with.
johnnyjay t1_j5u02i6 wrote
Agreed that the completion rate factors in and those are numbers that are not widely shared, but it is another example of their unsustainable model. The window for their completion rate is too narrow. The whole point of streaming is that shows are On Demand and you can watch them whenever you want. And people obviously tuned in for 1899. Because they didn't finish quick enough should not necessarily be a reason to cancel the show, otherwise the whole On Demand thing is pointless.
lennydykstra17 t1_j5u3pef wrote
As someone who also stopped watching 1899 by the 2nd episode, I don't think it's too narrow. Its based on a month of viewing hours, which is a cutthroat approach sure, but cable television often cancels shows before it's 1st season even finishes airing based off of bad viewership. Sometimes the set costsbare too high to maintain, locations to difficult to access, or just otherwise bad productions.
If a show doesn't test well the company won't spend extra money marketing it, which can lead to a less than ideal launch, giving it leas viewers than other content, which leads to an early cancellation. Shows often get the short end of the stick in this respect, but it's more a product of the market than the executives in charge of the decisions. Netflix's new pairing with the Nielsen ratings will help the transparency, but I'd argue they've done a fairly good job of using internal numbers in a transparent way.
noob_tech t1_j5umf8p wrote
Even though you deleted the thread because you couldn't answer a straight-forward question, here's something to clue you in - it actually costs Netflix more to stream a show after the 30 day window than during it, due to shuffling content around on local delivery systems to save bandwidth.
https://www.theverge.com/22787426/netflix-cdn-open-connect
​
But keep citing public metrics and telling half the story like you have it figured out already.
johnnyjay t1_j5txuam wrote
No misunderstanding. Here's the quote:
We have never canceled a successful show. A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget. The key to it is you have to be able to talk to a small audience on a small budget and a large audience at a large budget. If you do that well, you can do that forever.
1899 was expensive to make. But it also performed better than the average Netflix top performer. So it was successful and did not have a "very small audience". If it was so expensive that it required a run at Number 1 for multiple weeks, then Netflix is greenlighting shows that are not sustainable, and that is on them.
Warrior Nun performed a little lower than the average Netflix top performer, but that show is less expensive to produce and the viewership should have been in line with expectations.
laughland t1_j5tyncf wrote
Yes but HOW expensive was 1899 to make? It’s all relative, maybe 1899 necessitated an even bigger audience draw than other “top performers” because it cost that much more. Also as others have mentioned, hours watched isn’t necessarily the best metric because you could have a ton of people watching the first episode and only a few people watching the last; what does that mean for the viability of a Season 2? There’s been reports that Netflix values completion rates almost just as much if not more than hours viewed
WordsAreSomething t1_j5tyryc wrote
>But it also performed better than the average Netflix top performer. So it was successful and did not have a "very small audience".
That doesn't mean it was successful. It's viewership and reportedly it's completion rate wasn't that good compared to 0ther expensive shows they produce. So it doesn't seem like it was successful.
This really comes down to you not really having the information to say if something was truly successful or not. If any of these shows were actually successful what does Netflix gain by cancelling them? Occam's razor my guy.
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