Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2017 2:28:43 GMT
Discovery got me thinking about this idea.
Discovery is terrible, obviously. And yet it's been renewed. Having read/listened to a lot of stuff about how it was produced and paid for, it seems to me that it doesn't actually matter whether the show sucks or not. It doesn't even matter whether people like it or not.
The typical model is that a show wants to attract lots of viewers because that means they can charge advertisers more to show ads during it. But Netflix and CBS All Access don't show ads (I know the cheaper All Access option does). They make money from subscribers, and you don't subscribe to an individual show, at least yet, but to the whole package.
So they don't really have any reason to care if a lot of people watch or like a given show or not. All that actually matters is that the total package of all content in the library is enough to attract subscribers.
For Netflix, adding any given show to their library has a marginal effect on the overall package. Discovery may lower the average quality of their shows, but so what? People who don't like it won't watch it (or will hate-watch it), but it's not like the presence of any given bad show will drive viewers away.
I've heard this said about all those low budget terrible movies that seem to be so popular lately. Apparently Netflix pays for a lot of those on the basis that they need a lot of cheap content to pad out their service. They don't really care about the quality because they only want them so they can say things like "Subscribe to Netflix, we have 1,000 movies to choose from and 20 more every month!"
For All Access it's a little difference since they have very little in the way of new shows to attract people. But the deal they struck with Netflix has Netflix covering virtually the entire budget of the show in return for the international rights. So whilst they obviously hope that they will get a whole slew of new subscribers to All Access, it doesn't actually matter that much if they don't because they can't lose out financially. Whatever they do get is pure profit. And there's no series so bad that some percentage of the audience won't like it, after all.
So the upshot seems to be that it doesn't actually matter if Discovery is any good or not. Thus there's no incentive to make it good.
Are we entering a new age where it doesn't matter if TV shows are good any more? Or perhaps it would be better to say that we're entering a two tier age, where you need a few quality shows to attract people and then a lot of cheap filler to pad out your library and make your service seem like it's worth the cost?
Discovery is terrible, obviously. And yet it's been renewed. Having read/listened to a lot of stuff about how it was produced and paid for, it seems to me that it doesn't actually matter whether the show sucks or not. It doesn't even matter whether people like it or not.
The typical model is that a show wants to attract lots of viewers because that means they can charge advertisers more to show ads during it. But Netflix and CBS All Access don't show ads (I know the cheaper All Access option does). They make money from subscribers, and you don't subscribe to an individual show, at least yet, but to the whole package.
So they don't really have any reason to care if a lot of people watch or like a given show or not. All that actually matters is that the total package of all content in the library is enough to attract subscribers.
For Netflix, adding any given show to their library has a marginal effect on the overall package. Discovery may lower the average quality of their shows, but so what? People who don't like it won't watch it (or will hate-watch it), but it's not like the presence of any given bad show will drive viewers away.
I've heard this said about all those low budget terrible movies that seem to be so popular lately. Apparently Netflix pays for a lot of those on the basis that they need a lot of cheap content to pad out their service. They don't really care about the quality because they only want them so they can say things like "Subscribe to Netflix, we have 1,000 movies to choose from and 20 more every month!"
For All Access it's a little difference since they have very little in the way of new shows to attract people. But the deal they struck with Netflix has Netflix covering virtually the entire budget of the show in return for the international rights. So whilst they obviously hope that they will get a whole slew of new subscribers to All Access, it doesn't actually matter that much if they don't because they can't lose out financially. Whatever they do get is pure profit. And there's no series so bad that some percentage of the audience won't like it, after all.
So the upshot seems to be that it doesn't actually matter if Discovery is any good or not. Thus there's no incentive to make it good.
Are we entering a new age where it doesn't matter if TV shows are good any more? Or perhaps it would be better to say that we're entering a two tier age, where you need a few quality shows to attract people and then a lot of cheap filler to pad out your library and make your service seem like it's worth the cost?
