Tuesdays with Tom: The Netflix Effect
How many of you fine readers watched You on Netflix? I didn’t see it, but in the company’s nonstop efforts to throw content directly in your face, You became the talk of the town metaphorically when it hit Netflix screens last month. It’s a melodramatic TV series about a man, played by former Gossip Girl alum Penn Badgley, who becomes obsessed with a woman he met at a bookstore and stalks her to entertaining effect. Like a lot of Netflix shows, it seemingly came out of nowhere and grabbed the attention of millions for a short period of time. Once again it seemed that Netflix created something that enraptured a specific audience of people and took aim at a Lifetime-channel type of programming. There’s just one problem to this narrative. You was literally a show on Lifetime. It debuted on the cable network in September 2018 to a premiere of 0.8 million viewers and was promptly cancelled at the end of its inaugural 10-week run. By all accounts, this show came in like a lamb and left like a shaved lamb. Then all of the sudden, a Netflix semi-rebrand and the company publicly boasted that 40 million viewers watched the show in four weeks time. How could a show that didn’t change at all go from barely scraping a million people per episode to getting almost 13% of the country to try it with just one logo change? It’s called the Netflix effect. And I can’t stop thinking about it.
Full disclosure: I am hardly the first person to talk about the so-called Netflix effect. Plenty have discussed this topic and rather than completely rip off what others have done, I’m going to simplify and personalize my feelings on it. It’s no secret that Netflix is growing like gangbusters, as my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Kretzig would say. They have nearly 150 million global subscribers, including around 60 million in the United States. That doesn’t account for people who mooch off the subscriptions of others (raises hand meekly) so it’s safe to say there’s even more people with access to it that aren’t being accounted for. That’s obvious. What’s becoming more apparent is how that incredible reach is being leveraged by the company to dominate the water cooler chatter more and more as people continue abandon network and cable TV.
The Netflix effect actually started well before one in five Americans paid for it in their homes. Anecdote alert. When I finished my sophomore year at Mizzou, I lived in Missouri for the summer so that I could gain in-state residency. I had a grueling job pitching gigantic tents for large parties and weddings. I worked in sweltering heat every day, so hot that it was over 100 degrees for 11 straight days. Despite this far from ideal job, I had an incredible summer for three main reasons: I never had to go to class, I made the most of my free time and a guy on my flag football team gave me his Netflix password on Day 1 and I basically never saw him again. At the time, Netflix had no original shows or films. They made watching seemingly anything very convenient. I’d come home after a long day and binge watch Mad Men, The League, How I Met Your Mother and tons of movies. Anything I could do to stay out of the sun when I didn’t have more exciting plans (Editor’s Note: I didn’t spend all my time alone watching Netflix). The best viewing decision I made was starting AMC’s Breaking Bad, which had four seasons available on Netflix. Shoutout to Matt Martin for this decision because we decided to watch it together and to this date, it’s the best show I’ve ever seen. One of the reasons we chose that over over another AMC show, The Walking Dead, was that at by mid-summer, Breaking Bad’s fifth season was set to premiere on linear TV. If we knocked out these four seasons before then, we’d be able to watch the newest episodes live. It turns out, we were just two small foot soldiers in the incredible Netflix revolution that was happening around Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad’s fourth season finale, titled “Face Off” aired on October 9th, 2011. It drew 1.9 million live viewers, a very respectable number for a cable series. The fifth season premiered on July 15th, 2012. That episode “Live Free or Die” was watched by 2.9 million people live. By the final half-season premiere on August 11, 2013, “Blood Money” was seen by nearly 6 million live viewers and the series finale pulled in a whopping 10.3 million viewers. In less than two years, Breaking Bad multiplied it’s live audience tenfold. Why do you think that is? Only one explanation: Netflix. Series creator Vince Gilligan plainly admitted this at the close of the show’s run. There’s no question that binge viewing on Netflix saved Breaking Bad and made the critically acclaimed series far more popular than it ever imagined. A cable TV show multiplying its ratings by a factor of 10 is unfathomable today. It will probably never happen again. I could go on, but Breaking Bad’s far from the only show during that time that got a full dose of the Netflix effect.
Things have changed. Back then, networks were more than happy to collect a paycheck from Netflix to get nearly free boosts for their programming. AMC raked in millions of advertising dollars from the bonus viewers of Breaking Bad. But once Netflix started becoming a more serious competitor, without having to report ratings themselves, the friendly exchange became more hostile. I’ve mentioned this before but Netflix used to be more tight-lipped about their ratings than your average silent monk. It was a convenient tool to have when shows like House of Cards, Orange is The New Black or the rebooted Arrested Development rolled out to say “Trust us, we’re doing really well!” They did this for years and the business plan completely switched from licensing other network’s shows to a multi-billion dollar investment in original content. But eventually, they couldn’t help themselves. They had to start giving people something to hold on to.
The first time I recall Netflix breaking their vow of ratings silence was with their series Stranger Things. The show took off instantly after its 2016 summer release and, like a lot of Netflix originals, was dropped with almost no warning or fanfare and became an unlikely hit. The much anticipated second season premiered in October 2017 and within a week, Netflix proclaimed to the world that the first episode of that season was seen by 15.3 million people within three days. That’s a really important nuance to understand. Many brands buy TV commercials based off a metric called “C3”. That means that when you buy a commercial in a TV show, a network will only get paid for that spot if it is seen (without fast forwarding on DVR) within three days of its air date. By choosing to announce this metric so specifically, Netflix was directly comparing itself to broadcast networks in way that would show their strength. As a comparison, NBC’s This is Us premiered in that same timeframe to 17.8 million people within the C3 window. In short, Netflix was claiming that Stranger Things is on par with the most viewed network television shows in America.
That’s a bold claim to make. But there are plenty of skeptics. Nielsen disputes the way Netflix counts viewers. They can only measure Netflix viewership from a TV, not a mobile device, but their first weekend read of Stranger Things’ second season was only 4.6 million. That’s a great number, but a far, far cry from 15.3 million. Additionally, it’s unclear how Netflix counts a viewer. How many times have you started something on Netflix and turned it off shortly? Are they counting anyone who watched the show for two minutes? Do they have to watch the entire series? What if you clicked on it on accident? These are things that can be tracked with traditional advertising measurement metrics, but Netflix is infamously ad-free. It’s hard to fully trust them.
They also have never publicly admitted to a failure. This is common in entertainment as many shows are quickly cancelled and their ratings are on full display for critics. But with Netflix, they aren’t held to the same level of scrutiny. A show can come and go and disappear into the never-ending Netflix vault. It seems only fair that if Netflix is going to selectively brag about their hits, they should have to account for their misses right? Certainly the industry thinks this, but the common American doesn’t really care about things like that.
This brings us back to You. If you’re a network executive at Lifetime, does it make you ecstatic that You become a massive hit on a streaming service? Or are you devastated that the show will likely be credited as a Netflix original and not a Lifetime program, with the full knowledge that you cancelled the series already? That’s a question for a very minute amount of people. The bigger question to me is this. Is there anything people WON’T try on Netflix? Could I release a two hour movie of myself doing laundry called Cleaning My Clothes! and become an instant celebrity? You was cast aside by a middling cable network for a lot of reasons. It’s a sign that people are not watching anything live that isn’t sports. It’s a continuation of the theme that people don’t want cable anymore. It could be a sign Lifetime failed in correctly marketing the show. But even if all of that is true, it doesn’t explain to me how this niche-genre show that was a failure across the board, suddenly resonated with millions simply because you could watch the entire series at once on Netflix.
I’ve felt the Netflix effect strongly in two other major ways recently. Bird Box, the Netflix horror film, was a classic Netflix drop. It was strategically released over the holidays, premiering on December 21st and once again Netflix bragged that 26 million people watched it within a week. This time Nielsen actually backed up the claim to a degree. In a fascinating twist, Netflix eschewed traditional marketing for the film, instead hiring a team of comedians to fashion social media memes of the movie to spread the word-of-mouth buzz that brands desperately crave. All it took was a few jokes, Sandra Bullock and an entire country with a week off from work to engineer a huge hit for Netflix’s film department. Whether or not Bird Box is actually good is of little consequence. People were talking about it. A lot. Pretty much because it was the first thing that popped up on the Netflix homepage. I still haven’t seen it.
The second wave hit me with the somewhat ridiculous weeks of press that the disastrous Fyre Festival got after two documentaries were released in the same week about the events. Hulu’s Fyre Fraud and Netflix’s Fyre were directly competing for attention. Hulu finally caved and released it three days earlier than Netflix to beat them to the punch. I watched the Hulu one thinking that I was in a small subset of music fans who were interested in this type of content. Boy, I was wrong. After the Netflix one came out, I heard several conversations from people whom, while I love and respect, don’t know shit about music and certainly not the events of one horrific weekend in the Bahamas two years ago. But it wasn’t the Hulu doc people talked about. It was Netflix. Hands down. The documentaries became a meta-commentary on the subject they were trying to comment on. I’d argue that Netflix's Fyre got even more attention than the festival itself did when it was all going down.
I wonder if the two documentaries had been flipped if the effect would have been the same. Would everyone be hailing Fyre Fraud instead of Fyre? I’m convinced that’s true. It’s not even a question of taste. It’s an indelible reminder that as long as its on Netflix, it matters and people will try it and talk about it. The same thing happened when Tidying Up with Marie Kondo popped onto Netflix. I don’t know anything about this woman, but she released a book about self organizing and “sparking joy” in 2011. Then eight years later she lands a Netflix special and within a week, my social media timeline was littered with people posting photos of their neatly organized closets. When was that released? January 1st. Coincidence? I think not.
I don’t want to beat up on Netflix. It’s an incredible service. It brings a glut of entertaining options to you for a fairly low cost and it’s beloved. But as someone who is as curious as I am, I’m wondering if we’re becoming so devoted to the offerings that we stop thinking for ourselves in a way. Will you ever find something organically again? Or something that feels like its a secret for awhile? If it’s on Netflix, that seems pretty unlikely. If Bird Box had been released traditionally, I’m not sure 26 million people would have raced to a movie theater opening weekend to see it. But it’s a lot easier to press play from a remote on your couch than drive to the movies. Same with any of the things I just mentioned. In the case of You, clearly there was a much different response to the series on Netflix than Lifetime. What You says about you is for you to decide. For me, I’m just trying to evaluate my role in the cultural epicenter that Netflix devours.
Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
We live in a time where seemingly every online opinion is a prisoner of the moment. Especially with sports, everything is either “best ever!” or “worst ever!” and we feel the need to contextualize each moment as if it’s a grand piece of history. This Yahoo! Sports writer summed up this exact phenomenon very well to me about Super Bowl ratings being down this year. His primary argument is that there’s nothing really valuable to learn from Super Bowl ratings other than pro or anti-NFL supporters using both ends of the argument to bolster their preordained opinion. The Super Bowl had lower ratings than usual because everyone is sick of the Patriots and the game was awful. The commercials weren’t the worst ever because they are pretty much the same quality every year. And boycotting the Super Bowl is fruitless because it’s the only live event that can consistently draw 100 million viewers every year without fail. It’s important to have perspective. Not everything is Earth shattering news.
MoviePass is still hanging around, despite the companies many public failures. I’m still a subscriber and I’ve actually used it twice this year already. I’m basically committed to waiting until this thing completely sucks to drop it and since I got in early, I still have the original price point. It’s not unlimited movies, but it’s up to three a month. Still worth it if you even go once a month.
The Bulls have made plenty of maddening and fool-hardy decisions in the last three seasons. But I don’t totally mind the most recent trade sending Jabari Parker and Bobby Portis to the Wizards for Otto Porter Jr. Parker was pretty much a disaster from the minute they signed him and not part of the future of the team. Portis is a solid role player but he’ll never surpass Lauri Markkanen or Wendell Carter Jr. for playing time at his position. Porter is an ideal three-and-D athlete that the Bulls desperately need. The catch is that his contract figure is absurd (around $27 million a year the next two season) but the Bulls have very few players making significant NBA salaries now. I think it’s a decent gamble on talent.
One day I’m going to have an obituary for my life and I can only hope it’s as funny as the one written by this Canadian woman named Sybil Hicks. She recently passed and penned a first-person obituary in the Hamilton Spectator. Among the highlights, she calls her husband a “horse’s ass”, teases her children and the best line of all comes towards the end. “I finally have the smoking hot body I always wanted...having been cremated.” Well done, Sybil. I wish I’d met you.
It’s the golden age of the documentary. I just saw another one that is incredible called Free Solo. It’s nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. Free soloing is a form of rock climbing that has one minor difference: you don’t use ropes or harnesses. It’s about the most dangerous sport you could ever attempt and only a few even dare to make a career out of it. Alex Honnold is the world’s premier free solo climber and the documentary details his life and quest to become the first human being to free solo El Capitan, a 3,000 foot wall of granite, in Yosemite. This sport is insane and I was squirming in my seat just watching Honnold train to make this summit happen. One mistake in free soloing and you are guaranteed to die. How does Honnold do it? I encourage you to find out for yourself and marvel at the achievement. No, it’s not on Netflix yet.
On the complete opposite end, is there a safer sport than bowling? I mean sure, a slip of the fingers could send a bowling ball flying. But there is almost no athleticism required to bowl. I tallied up a 140 this weekend after taking many months off and I didn’t practice once. A bowling documentary wouldn’t be nearly as compelling to watch. But maybe I’m wrong about that too.