Not every Netflix show or movie is Stranger Things, Squid Games or The Adam Project. Most are not Ozark, or The OA. Well, a few are The Stranger, or any number of Harlan Coben pot-boiler/head-scratchers. It could be the Breath Keeper or the Man from Toronto.
But what all Netflix content has in common, at least for me, is that we watch it.
I sometimes joke that none of us are satisfied until we reach the end of Netflix, the dark place at the bottom of the deep well of Netflix content. It’s cold, it’s hard, it’s bleak, and if there’s a sliver of something new attached to that core, we’ll watch that, too.
A question of quality
Does quality matter? I think it’s important to Netflix and its subscribers in equal measure, but each side is dealing with some unavoidable problems, which means that the basis of whether something is done or not No, your watch is not always worth it. Read also : Why Is Everyone Talking About Netflix Stocks?.
For Netflix, it has more than 221M subscribers to satisfy, a huge consumption gap that consumes repackaged content after Netflix pulls it from the production oven.
For consumers, they spend more time than ever before the screen, they are eager to be surprised by the promises of Netflix and often get frustrated when it seems that there is nothing new.
When Netflix spends $17B or more a year on new TV series, reality shows, and movie theaters, the idea is unthinkable. As I see it, Netflix has found a way to fill an unsettled need, which is to create an unsettled mix of high-quality and low-quality entertainment.
However, subscribers no longer care.
Rotten fruit
I started looking back at some of the Most Popular and Trending Stories on Netflix and found that, while there are many shows that achieve 80%+ critics and audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, there are and a few less than 50%. See the article : Netflix’s ‘Grey Man’ Marketing Bombardment: Emojis, TV Ads and a Streetcar.
The survivalist story Keep Breathing has a critical score of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes and only a 45% audience score. In fact, it’s a Top 10 show on Netflix because it’s new, it’s available, and, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s popular because it appears in the Top 10.
When you’re scrolling through Netflix in desperate search of your next binge fix, the first thing you see is what most people are watching. For all the size of Netflix’s content library, it’s more like a local cineplex with a few selections listed on the marquee. The rest of Netflix is like a back room that you only visit if you want to take your chances.
Or take a movie like Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, The Man from Toronto. It has one of the worst rotten tomato ratings I’ve seen in a while, just 23% on the Tomatometer, and, from the audience that sat through it, just 42% . Yes, it’s a top 10 on Netflix, but it also follows other Netflix and, I would say, a broader trend of TV and movie consumption: audiences tend to rate content more than discerning critics.
Not only do low scores not matter, but no scores at all are useless. If something is new and it’s available on Netflix, it will be consumed. For example, look at the unusual Attorney Woo. It has no Rotten Tomatoes score and, based on Audience Score, no one likes it. However, it is still a Top 10 show.
You’ll watch anyway
That’s right. However, it is the praise of the audience that counts. Read also : Should You Watch ‘Purple Hearts’ on Netflix?. But I have a clear feeling that as competition increases along with the demand for more content, we will see a decrease in the returns on quality content.
Shows that may not have made it in the past, quality gatekeepers will be thrown onto Netflix with the knowledge that there will be a wave of audience feeding, whether the show/movie is good or not. .
The Netflix show has a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. Expires August 1, 2022
When I asked in a Twitter Poll how people would react to a Netflix show with a 38% Rotten Tomatoes score, the majority said they would still give the single episode a try. (they were closely followed by 34% who said they should avoid it altogether).
That’s all Netflix really needs to prove its approach works. If you watch just one episode of a random show right after it airs, that show will almost certainly be in the top 10 or, at the very least, Trending Now (which is less popular on Netflix ). Once you have that, you’ve started a cycle where subscribers will see more people watching the new show. So they will try it too. Soon, it has become popular, and, despite the appalling standards, it is almost inevitable.
I’m not hooked on this trend and, as 6% of respondents told me, I’ll probably hate watching it on Netflix too.
Lance, a 35-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, talked about technology when PCs were the size of suitcases and “mobile” meant “waiting. ” He is Editor-in-Chief of Lifewire, Mashable Editor-in-Chief, and, before that, Editor-in-Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis, Inc. He also wrote a popular, weekly technology column. for Medium called The Upgrade.
Lance Ulanoff (opens in new tab) appears regularly on national, international, and local news programs including Live with Kelly and Ryan, Fox News, Fox Business, The Today Show (opens in new tab) , Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC.
