Has Netflix changed TV forever?
The streaming giant has profoundly affected viewing habits – but, suggests Chris Harvey, not necessarily in a positive or permanent way.
Last July and August, there was one TV show everyone was talking about. The premise sounded a little odd: an eight-part drama about a 12-year-old girl with psychokinetic powers, who escapes from a top-secret laboratory into the protection of a gang of nerdy boys. And with four unknown child leads, and a pair of unknown brothers at its helm, there was little buzz around it in the run-up to its launch.
But Stranger Things was a bona-fide phenomenon loved for its homage to 1980s horror and scifi films, watched by a reported eight million people in its first 16 days, and Millie Bobby Brown, the 13-year-old who plays Eleven, the mysterious escapee, became a breakout star. Season two, released on Friday with an avalanche of hype, is the TV event of the year.
The success of Stranger Things
– not to mention other hits such as the lavishly produced royal family saga The Crown, its first British production – has put Netflix firmly on the map as the entertainment company of the moment. Since launching as an online streaming service in 2007 the company has gone from strength to strength – it now reaches more than 100 million subscribers and produces an increasing number of original TV shows and films.
A key factor in its success is its use of algorithms – where once, film and television companies relied on test screenings and focus groups to gauge audience reaction, Netflix feeds off vast amounts of data on the viewing habits and tastes of its subscribers; it classifies its shows and films using around 77,000 individual ‘‘microgenres’’ – and commissions more programmes that fit into the most popular ones accordingly. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, has suggested that 70 per cent of its commissioning decisions are based on data, and 30 per cent on human judgment.
It therefore had deep insider knowledge of the potential appeal of Stranger Things before it was commissioned.
The company also has a reputation for granting artistic freedom, something that arguably serves creators and viewers well. Film director David Ayer recently suggested that his disappointing 2016 blockbuster, Suicide Squad, had been marred by studio meddling, so it’s understandable he has transferred to Netflix for his next film, Bright, a US$90 million (NZ$131 million) fantasy thriller whose star, Will Smith, has also been singing the praises of the company’s relatively hands-off approach: ‘‘[They] will just give you the money and let you go make the movie you want to make,’’ he said in July.
While this may occasionally lead to self-indulgence, it has also led to innovation, whether that’s mixing up episode lengths or representing those who have been previously under-represented on screen. Take another of Netflix’s flagship shows, women’s prison drama Orange Is the New Black, for example; when it launched in 2013, it was seen as pioneering for putting a racially diverse ensemble of women centre stage.
If you think Netflix is big now, it’s only set to get more powerful. The company is spending $8 billion to make its library 50 per cent original by the end of 2018, including plans to make 80 films (Warner Bros has made 25 in 2016).
There wasn’t much to suggest this startling future back in 1997 when Netflix’s founders, a pair of late-thirtysomething Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, began talking about starting a new internet-based business together. Reed Hastings – whose software company had just been swallowed up in a US$585 million merger that signalled to venture capitalists that he was a safe bet – and Marc Randolph saw an opportunity in a ‘‘lightweight’’ format that was still being tested – DVDs. The video rental business had long been a major earner, but relied on customers going into shops to collect bulky VHS tapes – and so, in April 1998, after six months of careful preparation, the duo launched Netflix, an online DVD store. The response was instant: their servers crashed and their laser printer couldn’t handle the
100 orders that came in.
From the start, though, Hastings had the idea that the
4.7GB of data that can be stored on a DVD could one day be delivered over the internet. Less than 10 years later, in 2007, with video rental giant Blockbuster heading towards bankruptcy, Netflix launched its online streaming service. In 2012, with subscriber numbers growing, the company began to expand internationally. By 2016, in less than 20 years, Netflix had become a global power, existing in 130 countries.
However, not everything about the rise of Netflix is welcome – certainly not to the film and TV industry as we know it. Fed by Netflix’s release format, when all episodes of a series are released at once, audiences are becoming addicted to binge-watching – making them increasingly impatient with the old, oncea-week format for TV drama – and less likely to go out to the cinema.
Major figures in the industry are starting to speak out against the ‘‘Netflix-isation’’ of culture:
Dunkirk director Christopher Nolan said recently that he wouldn’t make films for the company, which he believes is helping to kill off cinemas, while revered British director Michael Winterbottom recently told me he thinks Netflix will destroy British TV, because it demands stories with global appeal.
The company doesn’t appear to be paying much tax in the UK, where its around 6.5 million subscribers generated annual revenue estimated at about £400 million (NZ$766m), reported in the Netherlands. Its reported profits in the UK last year were less than £1 million , and it paid around
£270,000 in tax.
And its output is becoming ever more hit-and-miss. While it presents itself as a creative pioneer, it is also propped up by some hoary, lowest-common-denominator content, such as sitcoms The Ranch and Fuller
House and its ongoing series of Adam Sandler films. And it is starting to behave more like a traditional TV network in its ruthless cancelling of failing shows, including the Naomi Watts psychodrama Gypsy and Baz Lurhmann’s hip-hop musical The
Get Down. It also hasn’t managed a significant breakout film yet. And there have been questions as to whether Netflix can continue to spend mind-boggling sums like the
$US130 million for The Crown and
US$120 for The Get Down.
So where does the company go from here? Will Netflix truly get a stranglehold on our viewing habits, for better or worse –or is its bubble likely to burst?