{"id":5,"date":"2013-02-14T12:25:59","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T17:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/?p=5"},"modified":"2013-04-26T12:38:11","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T17:38:11","slug":"netflix-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/netflix-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyler Cowen :: Will marathon viewing become the TV norm?<\/a><\/p>\n

On Friday, Netflix will release a drama expressly designed to be consumed in one sitting: \u201cHouse of Cards,\u201d a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Rather than introducing one episode a week, as distributors have done since the days of black-and-white TVs, all 13 episodes will be streamed at the same time. \u201cOur goal is to shut down a portion of America for a whole day,\u201d the producer Beau Willimon said with a laugh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ad-financed shows \u2014 still a clear majority of viewing \u2014 may prefer to have impressions from the ads spread out over weeks and months rather than concentrated in one long marathon sitting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, when watching an hour long show \u2014 or even a half-hour \u2014 I routinely see the same ad multiple times. Not ads for the same product or service, but the very same advertisement. I am sure there is a lot of literature about the trade-offs between repetition and staleness to doing this. (Note to self: ask about this at the next marketing quant lunch.)<\/p>\n

\"house_of_cards\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cowen continues:<\/p>\n

Furthermore the show itself relies more heavily on an effective and immediate burst of concentrated marketing, with little room to build word of mouth and roll out a campaign with stages.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, you lose word-of-mouth, but you also lose the inevitable week-to-week decay as people drop out of the viewership pool. Most TV shows show a remarkably consistent exponential decay in viewership. It's not at all clear to me that the gaining from WOM and the losing from audience decay is preferable to having neither.<\/p>\n

This is being framed as a contest between watching 13 episodes in one day and watching them over four months. My wife and I have been watching one episode of \"House of Cards\" every day or so. I think this middle ground may be a better solution than either extreme. A two week roll-out keeps viewers focused and concentrates marketing, but doesn't roll the dice on one big push.<\/p>\n

Note that Netflix has an advantage that other outlets don't: they can continue to advertise the show for free through their service. This won't drive new members to subscribe, but I think they benefit even when existing members watch the show. True, it doesn't boost revenue, but racking up higher viewership both makes it easier for them to create high-quality shows in the future, and it strengthens their in-house productions as a bargaining chip when negotiating with other content producers and distributors, which I think is the real value of \"House of Cards.\"<\/p>\n

One media market which is still highly serialized and has clearly not come to grips with the implications of that is comics. Here is just one recent piece about this<\/a>. People have been fretting over the serialization-vs-collection transition and the friction it causes since I started reading comics six years ago, and they don't seem any closer to resolving the tension.<\/p>\n

PS<\/em> \"House of Cards\" is very highly recommended. I haven't had a show I was this excited about binge-watching in a couple of years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyler Cowen :: Will marathon viewing become the TV norm? On Friday, Netflix will release a drama expressly designed to be consumed in one sitting: \u201cHouse of Cards,\u201d a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Rather than introducing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[6,7],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-2","tag-business","tag-entertainment","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sddF-5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/netflix-again-hbr-misses-the-point\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":0},"title":"Netflix, again: HBR misses the point","author":"jsylvest","date":"14 February 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't intend for this blog to be nothing but commentary about Netflix. 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Traffic was published in 2009; I didn't expect then that producers would have made as much progress towards autonomous vehicles as they have in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business \/ Economics"","block_context":{"text":"Business \/ Economics","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/business-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), Tom Vanderbilt","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Traffic-Vanderbilt-205x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":226,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/ruby\/","url_meta":{"origin":5,"position":3},"title":"Ruby","author":"jsylvest","date":"25 April 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Coding Horror :: Jeff Atwood :: Why Ruby? I've always been a little intrigued by Ruby, mostly because of the absolutely gushing praise Steve Yegge had for the language way back in 2006. I've never forgotten this. 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