Netflix is reportedly beginning to buckle on the one element that first distinguished its business: the binge-watching model. A new industry analyst report claims that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is finally starting to pivot from his longstanding refusal to abandon binge-watch release models for Netflix Original content. While nothing concrete is suggested in the way of a new release model, Puck News notes that Hastings “has seemed unwilling to pivot off the binge model because he hasn’t needed or wanted to. Now, it appears, he does.”
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Reed Hastings may be reading the writing on the wall when it comes to the next phase of the Streaming Wars. Ever since Netflix started scaling back on mail-delivered DVDs and focused on streaming in the late 2000s and early 2010s, there has been a debate about whether the binge-watch model was the most effective way of consuming content. In the last few years, it’s seemed like modern standards of measuring TV and Movie success on streaming have come from social media buzz, both the size of it and its sustainability. Netflix’s binge-watch model doesn’t have that much trouble achieving the former: it’s the latter achievement that could be causing the streaming giant some concern.
It’s been increasingly noticeable how services like Disney+, HBO Max, and Prime Video are keeping control of the pop-culture zeitgeist by releasing weekly episodes of original programming TV. Marvel, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones are all top-tier brands in TV programming at the moment, and the weekly attention social media gives to them is considerably higher than any Netflix binge-watch release. Of course, there are exceptions (see: the global phenomenon of Netflix’s Squid Game), but aside from those kinds of “event series” that capture a moment, Netflix has seen a lot of its original programming IPs (The Witcher, The Sandman) suffer the inevitable “here today, gone tomorrow” consequence of binge-watching.
Stranger Things may be the most pivotal example of the moment: That show is a global phenomenon hit, and this past year, Netflix split Strangers Things 4 and Ozark’s final season into two halves each. There was definitely a palpable difference in sustained buzz between the halves of each show, as cliffhangers and questions kept fans chatting and theorizing, but the break was just long enough not to have either show fall out of memory. Many also commented that both shows were so entertaining that having them weekly would’ve been great – Stranger Things could’ve easily owned most of the summer if Netflix had put it out weekly and done the break before the last two (VFX-heavy) episodes.
Netflix also has docuseries as well as reality and talk shows that all release weekly episodes – so there is definitely already precedent for a release strategy change.
Are you ready for Netflix to go to a weekly episode model, or do you love the freedom to binge?
