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joI recently read this article about Netflix's decision to drop all episodes of a series at once rather than release them weekly (à la network TV). They found that by allowing people to binge a show, the show would "actually get more viewing and cumulatively more social media buzz, more tweets, more activity on social media around these shows for the all-at-once model."
While not expressly stated in the article, this implies something else -- it creates an immediate buzz around the entire show, meaning the season as a whole, rather than over individual episodes. Compare that to a weekly episode release, where there might be buzz created around a particular episode, and not always good buzz. If it's an episode that a lot of fans aren't happy with, there's a whole week during which what dominates online will be the negative comments. If people are incensed enough about a particular episode, the next week's episode will have to be that much better for them to move away from the "the showrunners are ruining this show!!!!" feeling.
I have been thinking about this with regards to Outlander because of a tweet I saw a couple of days ago from a blogger who is a huge fan of the books, and was a huge fan of the series -- up until last season. She used to write weekly episode updates, but stopped cold midway through the season. On Monday, she tweeted asking if anyone who'd had major issues with what season 4 had become was enjoying season 5 -- essentially asking if she should start watching it again. The replies she got ran the gamut from NO, it's horrible, they've ruined everything, to people who have loved the first couple of episodes and said it looked like the writing was much improved, to people who said she's an idiot for not liking season 4 because it was just fine, etc.
Which begs the question that is the title of this post -- would Outlander benefit if Starz dropped the entire series in one go? They'd make less money, of course, but would it be better for the show? If people could binge-watch it, if there was an episode that they particularly disliked, they could then quickly move on to the next one, which hopefully would be better, instead of stew over everything they disliked for an entire week. They'd be able to assess the season as a whole, as opposed to, again, fixate for days over what they didn't like in any given episode.
Each season of Outlander eventually ends up on Netflix, where it is available to binge, and I do notice a difference in opinion of the show between those who come to it via Netflix -- where they binged the first 3 or 4 seasons in a matter of days -- and those who consume each season on the episode-a-week basis. Much less negativity -- in fact, the only thing the Netflix fans get negative about is the fact that the current season isn't on Netflix (and won't be for at least a year or so). I've noticed it myself -- I did a rewatch of season 4 before season 5 started. While I quite enjoyed season 4, there were a couple of episodes (one especially) that I had issues with. However, being able to watch 2-3 (or more) episodes in a row really diminished my negativity towards those bits of the season I'd not liked because I just moved on to the next episode instead of having that one episode stuck in my head for a week.
I know I'm writing in a void here -- no one is reading this blog, but I just thought I'd put this out there...
While not expressly stated in the article, this implies something else -- it creates an immediate buzz around the entire show, meaning the season as a whole, rather than over individual episodes. Compare that to a weekly episode release, where there might be buzz created around a particular episode, and not always good buzz. If it's an episode that a lot of fans aren't happy with, there's a whole week during which what dominates online will be the negative comments. If people are incensed enough about a particular episode, the next week's episode will have to be that much better for them to move away from the "the showrunners are ruining this show!!!!" feeling.
I have been thinking about this with regards to Outlander because of a tweet I saw a couple of days ago from a blogger who is a huge fan of the books, and was a huge fan of the series -- up until last season. She used to write weekly episode updates, but stopped cold midway through the season. On Monday, she tweeted asking if anyone who'd had major issues with what season 4 had become was enjoying season 5 -- essentially asking if she should start watching it again. The replies she got ran the gamut from NO, it's horrible, they've ruined everything, to people who have loved the first couple of episodes and said it looked like the writing was much improved, to people who said she's an idiot for not liking season 4 because it was just fine, etc.
Which begs the question that is the title of this post -- would Outlander benefit if Starz dropped the entire series in one go? They'd make less money, of course, but would it be better for the show? If people could binge-watch it, if there was an episode that they particularly disliked, they could then quickly move on to the next one, which hopefully would be better, instead of stew over everything they disliked for an entire week. They'd be able to assess the season as a whole, as opposed to, again, fixate for days over what they didn't like in any given episode.
Each season of Outlander eventually ends up on Netflix, where it is available to binge, and I do notice a difference in opinion of the show between those who come to it via Netflix -- where they binged the first 3 or 4 seasons in a matter of days -- and those who consume each season on the episode-a-week basis. Much less negativity -- in fact, the only thing the Netflix fans get negative about is the fact that the current season isn't on Netflix (and won't be for at least a year or so). I've noticed it myself -- I did a rewatch of season 4 before season 5 started. While I quite enjoyed season 4, there were a couple of episodes (one especially) that I had issues with. However, being able to watch 2-3 (or more) episodes in a row really diminished my negativity towards those bits of the season I'd not liked because I just moved on to the next episode instead of having that one episode stuck in my head for a week.
I know I'm writing in a void here -- no one is reading this blog, but I just thought I'd put this out there...
