New York (CNN Business) “Stranger Things 4 – Vol. 2” is coming to Netflix this weekend, and the children from Hawkins, Indiana, are back at just the right time for the streaming giant.
It’s been a terrible 2022 for Netflix. The stock is down 70 percent this year. In April, the company reported losing subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. Last week, Netflix laid off 300 employees. The results report later this month is estimated to show a loss of two million more subscribers.
But there is one thing that has been good for Netflix (NFLX): “Stranger Things”.
The first part of the science fiction horror series’ fourth season debuted in May with a record number, and became Netflix’s most popular English-language TV program. It has been No. 1 on Netflix’s English Top 10 list every four weeks since its premiere, and it also helped make a 1985 song a big hit again.
So why should a company that revolutionized the viewing experience with excessive viewing divide its largest franchise into two parts? The answer is no wonder at all.
Splitting up the upside down
The two premieres take place in two different quarters for the company. “Stranger Things 4— Vol. See the article : The fire causes damage worth $ 100K at the Western Hills Sports Mall. 1″ dropped on May 27, in the second quarter of Netflix, and “Vol. 2 »comes July 1, which starts the company’s third.
Fans of the popular program will hardly cancel their membership until they have seen the entire season. With new episodes spanning two different quarters around holiday weekends, the company has a better chance of retaining subscribers, which it must do to keep Wall Street happy.
The second, non-monetary reason why “Stranger Things” is split: the show is massive this season.
“With nine scripts, over eight hundred pages, almost two years of filming, thousands of images with visual effects and a playing time almost twice as long as a previous season, ‘Stranger Things 4’ was the most challenging season so far, but also most rewarding. , “Duffer Brothers, the show’s creators, wrote in a note in February. “Given the outstanding length, and to get it to you as soon as possible, Season 4 will be released in two volumes.”
Duffers were not hyperbolic.
“Stranger Things 4 – Vol. 1” is about nine hours long. The last two episodes that make up “Vol. 2” have game times that match feature films, with episode eight lasting an hour and 25 minutes and episode nine coming in at a full two hours and 30 minutes.
To excessively or not excessively? How about a split?
To binge or not to binge? How about a split?
So it’s a business reason and a creative reason to share the season. To see also : Release Date and Time of Episode 7 of The Boys Season 3: How to Watch the Series on Amazon Prime Video. But there is another reason: it keeps the show in the public consciousness.
“They changed things a little bit by splitting the release of ‘Stranger Things’ in two halves,” Zak Shaikh, vice president of programming at research-based media firm Magid, told CNN Business. “But in general, they can slow down the release of some of their big franchises so that these programs can be a part of the conversation longer.”
By having “Stranger Things” episodes separated by a month or so, Netflix gets two pieces on the apple, markets the same season twice and keeps the show on top for viewers.
This is not the first time Netflix has split a series. The final season of “Ozark”, another Netflix hit, was split over two quarters as it premiered episodes from last season in January and April earlier this year.
There has been a lot of debate about whether streamers should release episodes weekly or all at once. Netflix – which has primarily stuck to the binge model – may have found something in between.
“Bingeing served as a strategy to disrupt the market,” Shaikh said. “But it does not maximize the value of warm properties.”
