Netflix & the reality of modern television

 

It is often been said that there is more quality television drama than ever before now we have so many platforms on which to see it. By that measure its not too surprising to find there are more dramas cancelled than ever before. You see it happen often, a well liked or indeed beloved series is axed provoking a storm of protest, talk of petitions, boycotts and much else. Occasionally fan pressure has worked and brought back a show on another platform but generally this noise, however loud, is like shouting into the wind. What the platforms know is that people who engage in such an outcry are a small but noisy coterie and also that people do get over the cancellation of a television show however much of a shock it may be at that time. 

N for Netflix or for No?

It does make you wonder though just what lies behind the policies of the big platforms, especially Netflix. They have gained a particular reputation for even cancelling shows that seem popular. Their mysterious process crunches not just numbers of viewers but the number of times people watch, whether they watch all the way through, what age viewers are, even whether they skip the intro. All this matters, it seems, a lot more than just that old fashioned single measure of success- viewing figures. Even shows that make it to that mythical second season are unlikely to last beyond a third. In our short term culture things move on.

This month Lockwood and Co was cancelled by Netflix after one season. This was a genuine surprise as it seemed to be playing well with high appreciation scores and positive critical reviews, big viewing figures and evidence of re-watches. Partly because it was developed from a series of YA novels it quickly generated a prominent online fandom, especially on Twitter, who seemed to warmly invest in the characters. I really enjoyed the series myself, finding it a definite cut above the genre norm with an engaging cast and some excellent scenarios. Like many who watched it I found it to be one of the best of its type in many a year.

Yet after the series debuted in January time was passing without a renewal announcement. On average if there has been no such information after three months a series is doomed and as this month dawned seasoned watchers knew there was not going to be a second season. This was officially confirmed last week. The announcement, which incidentally Netflix left the production company and author to make, was greeted online with disappointment and anger. There’s been talk of a Netflix boycott, a petition to try and persuade another platform to pick it up and so on,. The fan’s ire is easy to see because by all the criteria we might see the show was successful enough to merit a second series.

Netflix had certainly put enough money into the production and also the initial promotion. Several cities had enormous billboards when the show launched in January, something usually reserved for established shows like Stranger Things, and in fact that was what first made me aware of it. Yet Netflix promotion is not quite as strong as we may think. They push a series for a week then move on. So once the initial impact of this fades they don't do much else for subsequent weeks. That is the nature of the binge watch culture. In the old days a show like this would be shown one episode per week with trailers and fresh promo each week. Once a modern series is dropped in one package the promotion starts and ends there.

They can take on ghosts but not Netflix...

So, what other factors come into play? Its difficult to discover this secret of course but all kinds of factors matter beyond the basic figure of how many people watched something. There is revenue so they would see if a series caused an influx of new subscribers to watch it and stay for other things.  There is the click rate where you add programmes to your library. Online buzz is a less valuable tool once it has initially helped spread the word as that is usually generated by a proportionally small slice of the audience. What matters more is subscribers and what they watch, “valued hours” as they are apparently described. There are metrics too that consider the way people watch. Do they pick through an episode every few days or do they binge watch the whole thing? They also measure the amount of people who start but never finish a series, perhaps dropping out after a couple of episodes. Another factor seems to be worldwide success. A series can be very successful in one country but across the world may struggle to make an impact. The latter may be the case for Lockwood and co which is a very English series and outside costume dramas, this sort of English material can sometimes get lost in cultural translation.

From Netflix themselves the official word is that being in their global top ten for a month and earning almost 80 million hours worth of viewings wasn’t enough for a second season. They were “very pleased” with it though clearly not pleased enough. The company never reveals any detailed indication of what level a series much reach before it is good enough to continue. It would be wrong not to mention the financial side of production though. A series like this relying on special effects and a larger cast is going to cost more to make. Perhaps a series set in the reality of present day with no effects might have scraped a second season with the same metrics. The one thing that has always been the case even before streaming is that fantasy or sci-fi shows have to do better than contemporary dramas simply because they cost far more to make so the bar is higher from the start.

This series is just one recent example of a trend  that may in the end backfire on the streaming services. The more people invest their time and support in a show only for it to be snatched away almost before it has started the less willing they will be to do so in the future. This could lead to even more cancellations and over time an erosion of subscriptions as people won’t even bother with a show till it reaches a second or third season because it isn’t worth their while.