General Entertainment Netflix Reportedly Wants To Move Away From Binge Model Releases

[Jason]

 

[Dodger]

I don't want to watch stuff once a week like a peasant anymore than I have to. 

[Bacon]

If I can't binge it, I don't watch it as I have found out.

"Oh I'll just wait for all of the Falcon/Soldier episodes to come out and then watch them."

"Oh I'll just wait for all of the Boba Fett episodes to come out and then watch them."

"Oh I'll just wait for all of the Obi-wan episodes to come out and then watch them"

I haven't watched any of those. 

[Fizzzzle]

I think there is something to be said for weekly releases keeping things in the cultural consciousness for longer. Shows like Squid Game and the Witcher, while fantastic, kind of just burn bright and fade away.

 

Not to mention, probably more importantly, it keeps subscriptions. The reason I keep Disney Plus is because there's never a whole month that goes by without something I want to watch

[Bacon]

5 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Shows like Squid Game and the Witcher, while fantastic, kind of just burn bright and fade away.

I still both of those brought up often. 

 

Now the Disney+ shows, I don't see shit about them after their run, and yet shit like DD is still being talked about. I mean, mostly because Disney is making a new DD but 🤷‍♂️

[Guest]

This is literally the most obvious move Netflix can make. Look at how much longer the newest Stranger Things was specifically talked about just with the short break before the final two episodes released!

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I still both of those brought up often. 

 

Now the Disney+ shows, I don't see shit about them after their run, and yet shit like DD is still being talked about. I mean, mostly because Disney is making a new DD but 🤷‍♂️

The sample size of “me” strikes again

[Bacon]

bitch

[Bacon]

Just now, sblfilms said:

The sample size of “me” strikes again

Yes.

Spoiler

 Or Maybe.

If you mean that I, myself, bring them up that is wrong. 

 

[Anathema-]

It was a great idea whose time had come and has proven itself to be an utter failure. It's long overdue.

[Bacon]

For real tho, I don't understand how people want their content staggered out artificially.

 

The watercooler shit is bogus and lame.

[EternallDarkness]

boo,. I much prefer they drop everything at once...of course the wait for the next season sucks, but I'd much rather be able to watch everyone over the course of a couple of days rather than months

[Anathema-]

Back when there were TV seasons you'd reliably have things to watch throughout the week. Now it's surprise I'm entertained for part of a weekend, randomly, several times per year. Full season drops suck shit for actually engaging with the content.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Excellent!

 

Bingeing the entertainment consumption equivalent of gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins and inevitably leads to Sloth, another one of them!

 

This will be good for everyone's moral fiber!

[Bacon]

3 minutes ago, Anathema- said:

Full season drops suck shit for actually engaging with the content.

What does this even mean? 

 

1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Bingeing the entertainment consumption equivalent of gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins and inevitably leads to Sloth, another one of them!

 

I am all 7 but lust is just masturbation 

[Jason]

Part of the problem with binging is everything kind of becomes a blur. It may help a little bit in the moment for keeping track of small details but once it's over I pretty much immediately forget a lot of what I've just watched in a way that I don't with weekly releases. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Bacon said:

For real tho, I don't understand how people want their content staggered out artificially.

 

The watercooler shit is bogus and lame.

“People” don’t. I’m pretty sure the binge model continues to poll better than weekly releases. Delayed gratification is generally less popular than instant gratification.

 

But that doesn’t mean it’s the best decision for the companies. Same reason releasing movies simultaneously at home and in theaters was largely a failure after the emergency need in the early part of the pandemic.

 

The industry is about creating, developing, and milking IP for all its worth. Keeping people engaged with content for 6-10 weeks instead of 6-10 days is the much smarter model.

[Anathema-]

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

What does this even mean? 

 

Nobody remembers shit about anything that goes on and the excitement is limited strictly to the people with the time and desire to binge eight to twelve hours at the drop of a hat and even then it's for a week max.  Excitement for the shows should be available to more people. Full season drops utterly ruin hype and engagement.

[Anathema-]

And, again, I can recognize how fairly hyped everyone was for the concept originally and that's including myself. The model has simply proven itself to be a failure. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Anathema- said:

 

Nobody remembers shit about anything that goes on and the excitement is limited strictly to the people with the time and desire to binge eight to twelve hours at the drop of a hat and even then it's for a week max.  Excitement for the shows should be available to more people. Full season drops utterly ruin hype and engagement.

It also makes it more difficult to build audiences over time if the entire conversation around the show began and ended in a weeks time.

 

When you’re only 3-4 episodes into a season, it’s way easier to jump in and catch up so that you can join in.

 

I hadn’t really thought about it until right now, but there are shows I’ve skipped jumping into because the ship had already sailed on it as a discussable piece of content

[Anathema-]

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I hadn’t really thought about it until right now, but there are shows I’ve skipped jumping into because the ship had already sailed on it as a discussable piece of content

 

As you said the blip of time between stranger things releases was a glimpse into the kind of free publicity that Netflix is just leaving on the table.

 

As an aside one thing I've always wanted to do was to somehow create a space for people to discuss content on that granular scale again. 

[Bacon]

3 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

But that doesn’t mean it’s the best decision for the companies

No duh, but I don't care about them. All I care about is me

All it has led to me consuming less. Cuz if I can't binge I don't watch. 

 

4 minutes ago, Jason said:

Part of the problem with binging is everything kind of becomes a blur.

This is true. I remember exactly which Mandalorian episodes are shit and boring and feel like filler. 

 

2 minutes ago, Anathema- said:

Nobody remembers shit about anything that goes on and the excitement is limited strictly to the people with the time and desire to binge eight to twelve hours at the drop of a hat and even then it's for a week max.  Excitement for the shows should be available to more people. Full season drops utterly ruin hype and engagement.

What exactly are you forgetting about that you watched? Sure, it becomes a blur I suppose but it isn't like I forgot the plot. And it actually give more more of a reason to re-watch a show. I've only watched Mandalorian once, I've watched Dare Devil and The Last Kingdom a few times now. 

 

And I don't get what you mean by engagement still. Just people talking about the show? I don't really care if I or someone else "can't" talk about a show because they weren't there for it week 1. And like, if I want to talk about something, I just make a thread about it no matter how old. Not a fair comparison, but I and other people do it all the time with video games. 

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Cuz if I can't binge I don't watch. 

You can still binge everything, you just have to wait for it to all be released. Which if you don’t care about “water cooler shit”, should make no difference.

[SuperSpreader]

Good 

[Bacon]

2 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

You can still binge everything, you just have to wait for it to all be released. Which if you don’t care about “water cooler shit”, should make no difference.

That's what I do. Only to not end up watching it at all. So I don't watch it weekly, nor do I binge it once it is all done. It has to be dumped all at once or I don't watch it. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Bacon said:

That's what I do. Only to not end up watching it at all. So I don't watch it weekly, nor do I binge it once it is all done. It has to be dumped all at once or I don't watch it. 

This makes legitimately no sense if you have no interest in communal conversation

[Bacon]

Just now, sblfilms said:

This makes legitimately no sense if you have no interest in communal conversation

It is because it isn't new. You could say it is hype, but it has nothing to do with hype generated by fans. Getting excited for something because other people are excited isn't really my thing. What builds up hype for me are shit like trailers. 

 

What happens is that the shit comes out weekly and then I just lose interest overtime because there isn't new media to keep my interest. I mean, what made me play final fantasy xiv was the trailers. Shit was omega hype. Every new trailer gets me excited. When the devs hold live show to talk about the upcoming content that gets me excited. 

 

With shows, I get hype, but I only get one episode to unleash that hype on and I don't want to do that. That would be like the ffxiv devs releasing a raid tier with 1 boss instead of all 4. 

 

I know it all sounds stupid but that's how it works. I want the shiny new thing and I want it now, like a petulant child. When it isn't new, unless it is something really great, then I don't care. I wanted to watch Falcon, Fett, and Obi. I waited for them and now I don't care about them. They are right there. I could watch them right now, but I have no interest in them. 

 

[Moa]

This seems like a bad move that will increase the perception of Netflix losing content. 
 

I think the weekly release schedule works for some shows and doesn’t for others. Which model is better is far from objective and subject to personal preference, but switching to weekly releases feels like Netflix losing its identity and seems like another step in its fading away from the forefront of streaming services. 

[TheLeon]

I got really used to the whole season dump thing for a while there, but the return to weekly episodes has been happening for a while and I’m more or less fine with it. 
 

The “cultural conversation” aspect is kinda funny to me though considering how just much TV is being released across how many channels/streaming services. Like, I really enjoyed watching Severance on a weekly basis (got caught up with it a weeks in) but it’s not like I had a ton of people to talk about it with, because who has Apple TV+ and is watching this weird new show as it airs? I can see how it benefits the really big shows that are already established. 

[GeneticBlueprint]

I like the staggered model because I like talking about shows and listening to podcasts about them. Hard to do that when everything is dropped at once.

 

I mean hell I haven't even ventured into the Rings of Power thread yet because fucking Amazon dropped two episodes at once and by the time I watched the second episode they released the third. Shit.

[DarkStar189]

Sounds good to me.  The last few years I don't enjoy the huge drop all at once.  Something about consuming 10-12 hours of content in a day or two doesn't feel good.  I kind of missed having the shows randomly pop into my head during the day and wondering what's going to happen next.  Seems like such a waste from a business perspective too.  Create hours and hours of content only for people to consume it all within a week and be like "well come on, what's next?".

[Keyser_Soze]

I'm fine with this and it probably will help their shows in the long run especially those that are perceived to be "bad" because you have to wait 2 weeks for the drop off to occur rather than 1 day. Also worth noting they do have some shows on there already, specifically some Korean shows I believe, that do a weekly thing and maybe they saw those shows doing better.

 

All that being said. I'm not a binge watcher but I do watch daily so a change like this is kind of a double edged sword to me.

[skillzdadirecta]

All this means is ill wait for all the episodes are up at once to watch at my leisure. "Appointment TV" is a thing of the past. Why do you guys think I'm not in most of these new show topics? It's not because I'm not watching the shows, I'm just not watching them week to week. Before binging was a thing people recorded things on their vcrs, then their DVRs. Most people just don't have the time or patience to devote that amount of time to any but the most popular and engaging shows. But if your bored on a weekend,  you'll blow through shows you may not otherwise have watched or even been interested in. Netflix can move away from the binge model if they want, it's ultimately not going to change people's established viewing habits.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, DarkStar189 said:

Sounds good to me.  The last few years I don't enjoy the huge drop all at once.  Something about consuming 10-12 hours of content in a day or two doesn't feel good.  I kind of missed having the shows randomly pop into my head during the day and wondering what's going to happen next.  Seems like such a waste from a business perspective too.  Create hours and hours of content only for people to consume it all within a week and be like "well come on, what's next?".

A lot of movies cost more than entire season of shows and those are consumed in two hours. Binging shows is the same concept no?

[Derek]

We're all going to end up with landlines and cable television again.