What TV Shows Are You Watching? 8: Streaming Is the New Cable
- Thread starter Synobun
- Start date
- Status
I started The Marvelous Amazing Mrs. Maisel S5. E1 was as good as ever. Jewish comedy from the 50s and 60s. Amazon Prime.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 26,973
"Marvelous...."
It is a fantastic show and I'm a bit surprised it does not get more mentions. I watched episode 4 of this season on Friday night. Will hate to see it end. Hopefully,
Spoiler :
I love the relationship and antics of her parents. Shaloub is great as always, but the actress playing her mother is a real subtle standout in this series. In an upcoming episode, regarding a discussion of a play they went to, you will see the best of this dynamic.
EgonSpengler
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2014
- Messages
- 12,260
Mrs. Davis, through 4 episodes, is great. 
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Thanks for this recommend. Wifey and I binged eps 1-3 on Saturday evening, and eps 4+5 yesterday. Will likely finish it before Friday -- despite competition from Workin' Moms S7, due to arrive on Netflix.de this week.
They have written and produced for the small screen, including a producer credit for the Fargo tv-series.
The worst thing about the Cleopatra thing, isn't even the blackswapping. The trailer gives me the impression of poorly written soap drama with socio-political messages, disguised as a so-called 'documentary'.
zxcvbob
Emperor
The final season of Better Call Saul is on Netflix now.
I've watch the first half, up to the mid-season break. Now I'm watching the last season of Breaking Bad that I never got around to, then will finish BCS. Both shows are killing off major characters
Oh! Well, I've never watched the series, but I'll watch out for it.
Yes, but that's apparently the narrative that the producers wanted to push, at least the empowering of black women in the USA.EvaDK said:
It's also been pointed out that Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra, but this risks becoming very stupid very fast.
IIRC there is a scene in S4 where Mike is at a park with his granddaughter. That was filmed at "my park", the one next to our house around which I do my routine walking!
Last edited:
Still watching SNL season 1. The last two episodes were Dick Cavett and Peter Boyle. Loving the increased profile of Jane Curtin.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Jerry Springer: Era-defining TV host dies aged 79
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65415348
Zardnaar
Deity
Started watching Beef on Netflix.
Streamers Wrestle With Dilemma Of How Quickly to Release Content
BY SARAH KROUSE AND NATE RATTNER
Ever since Netf lix shook the entertainment world by releasing the entire first season of “House of Cards” in one fell swoop a decade ago, a debate has raged over whether that approach made any sense. Why, some wondered, would a streaming service pay top dollar for a show that users could consume in its entirety in a matter of days? Advocates of that approach, meanwhile, asked why streamers would stick to the weekly release format that defined legacy cable television when they had the flexibility to mix it up and give customers a more immediate payoff. The answer to the fundamental question of how best to release content, it turns out, is complicated.
“House of the Dragon” was last year’s most-watched streaming show, according to analytics provider Samba TV, and was released weekly on Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max and the HBO TV channel. The second-best, Netflix’s “Wednesday,” made all eight episodes available at the same time. An analysis by Samba TV of last year’s 20 most-viewed original streaming programs in the U.S. for The Wall Street Journal shows that both approaches have merits and pitfalls. Viewers are more likely to watch the entire season of a show that was released all at once, but such shows tend to have a shorter shelf life than the ones released weekly.
The issue of how to release content is of particular importance now that streaming ser-vices are struggling to hold on to subscribers. Consumers increasingly hop between services— which only require a monthly commitment—when they are done watching a specific show.
“Serial churning is really an existential threat that’s facing these streamers at this point,” said Evan Shapiro, a producer and adjunct media professor at Fordham University and New York University. That service- switching trend is forcing streamers to pay to reacquire the same customers, he said. Netflix largely stuck with its binge-release model, despite suffering quarterly subscriber declines for the first time in over a decade last year and reporting more modest subscriber growth this year than before the pandemic. “This enables viewers to lose themselves in stories they love,” the company said of the approach in a letter to investors late last year. “It’s hard to imagine, for example, how a Korean title like ‘Squid Game’ would have become a mega hit globally without the momentum that came from people being able to binge it,” Netflix said in that letter. The show, a 2021 dystopian drama about down-on their-luck adults risking their lives while playing traditional Korean children’s games on a secluded island, is Netflix’s most popular show ever.
More than 90% of original shows released last year on Netflix had the entire season made available on a single date, a significantly higher share than any of its streaming rivals, Ampere Analysis data show. Netflix had 10 of the 20 most-watched streaming shows last year, according to Samba TV, which collects data on what people watch on their smart TVs. Of these, seven were released all at once; the other three were split in two separate installments—a hybrid strategy that the company has been embracing lately for some of its buzzy programs. These were season four of “Stranger Things,” the fourth and final season of “Ozark” and the docuseries “Harry & Meghan.” Netflix initially explored releasing seasons in two parts during the pandemic, co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said last year, primarily as a workaround to Covid-19-related delays. The company found that fans liked the approach, he said.
Of the 10 non-Netflix shows on the top-20 list, two were released in bulk and the other eight were weekly, Samba TV found. The most-watched shows came from a variety of platforms including HBO Max, Paramount Global’s Paramount+, Amazon. com ’s Prime Video and Walt Disney’s Disney+, and the data includes viewership of streaming shows that also appeared on traditional cable networks. Releasing a season in bulk makes it more likely people will watch it in its entirety, Samba TV found. To measure the completion rate of shows released in different ways, it calculated the share of viewers who watched the premiere and finale episode within 50 days of their respective releases. “Reacher,” Prime Video’s adaptation of Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” novels, had a completion rate of 58%, Samba TV found, as did Netflix’s “Virgin River,” which also was released in bulk. On the other hand, only one show released weekly—“The White Lotus,” an HBO comedy-drama about the guests and staff of a fictional resort—had a completion rate of more than 50%. The trade-off, Samba TV found, is that binge-model shows tend to fizzle more quickly than their weekly counterparts.
To capture the degree to which shows built audiences over time, Samba TV measured the growth between the number of people who watched the premiere episode within 50 days of its release and those who watched any episodes within 103 days of a show’s release.
Netlflix made all eight episodes of ‘Wednesday’ available at once. COLLECTION CIOPLEA/ NETFLIX/ EVERETT VLAD
For “Tulsa King,” a Paramount+ mob drama series starring Sylvester Stallone, more than four times as many households watched episodes in the full 103 days than watched the premiere in the first 50—a sign that its overall audience grew significantly as the weekly show went along. Among bulk-release shows, the best performer by that metric was Prime Video’s “Reacher,” whose viewership bump was 61%. “It’s a battle to figure out how you get discovered and get people to watch the entire season,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and chief executive of Samba TV.
Samba TV relied on a 103 day period in its analysis to capture viewing of each episode of shows released at different cadences with varying numbers of episodes in a like-for like way. Samba TV’s data only covers smart TVs, not mobile phones, iPads and other screens on which viewers might tune in. It is drawn from a panel of three million households, counting a cumulative of five minutes of viewing as a watch. The two-part release approach occasionally used by Netflix emerged as a sweet spot, Samba TV found: It has a higher completion rate than weekly shows and more staying power than binge-model shows.
Advocates of gradual releases say they keep audiences excited for new episodes and ensure customers stay with a service for many weeks to catch the entirety of a season. The approach also builds more buzz for a show, as people discuss with anticipation what may happen next, in turn drawing in fresh audiences.
The latest—and final—season of HBO’s “Succession,” a satirical comedy-drama about the family of a fictional media mogul, is a case in point: Social media goes ablaze every Sunday night when a new episode is released, making it difficult for people who don’t watch it almost immediately to avoid spoilers.
BY SARAH KROUSE AND NATE RATTNER
Ever since Netf lix shook the entertainment world by releasing the entire first season of “House of Cards” in one fell swoop a decade ago, a debate has raged over whether that approach made any sense. Why, some wondered, would a streaming service pay top dollar for a show that users could consume in its entirety in a matter of days? Advocates of that approach, meanwhile, asked why streamers would stick to the weekly release format that defined legacy cable television when they had the flexibility to mix it up and give customers a more immediate payoff. The answer to the fundamental question of how best to release content, it turns out, is complicated.
“House of the Dragon” was last year’s most-watched streaming show, according to analytics provider Samba TV, and was released weekly on Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max and the HBO TV channel. The second-best, Netflix’s “Wednesday,” made all eight episodes available at the same time. An analysis by Samba TV of last year’s 20 most-viewed original streaming programs in the U.S. for The Wall Street Journal shows that both approaches have merits and pitfalls. Viewers are more likely to watch the entire season of a show that was released all at once, but such shows tend to have a shorter shelf life than the ones released weekly.
The issue of how to release content is of particular importance now that streaming ser-vices are struggling to hold on to subscribers. Consumers increasingly hop between services— which only require a monthly commitment—when they are done watching a specific show.
“Serial churning is really an existential threat that’s facing these streamers at this point,” said Evan Shapiro, a producer and adjunct media professor at Fordham University and New York University. That service- switching trend is forcing streamers to pay to reacquire the same customers, he said. Netflix largely stuck with its binge-release model, despite suffering quarterly subscriber declines for the first time in over a decade last year and reporting more modest subscriber growth this year than before the pandemic. “This enables viewers to lose themselves in stories they love,” the company said of the approach in a letter to investors late last year. “It’s hard to imagine, for example, how a Korean title like ‘Squid Game’ would have become a mega hit globally without the momentum that came from people being able to binge it,” Netflix said in that letter. The show, a 2021 dystopian drama about down-on their-luck adults risking their lives while playing traditional Korean children’s games on a secluded island, is Netflix’s most popular show ever.
More than 90% of original shows released last year on Netflix had the entire season made available on a single date, a significantly higher share than any of its streaming rivals, Ampere Analysis data show. Netflix had 10 of the 20 most-watched streaming shows last year, according to Samba TV, which collects data on what people watch on their smart TVs. Of these, seven were released all at once; the other three were split in two separate installments—a hybrid strategy that the company has been embracing lately for some of its buzzy programs. These were season four of “Stranger Things,” the fourth and final season of “Ozark” and the docuseries “Harry & Meghan.” Netflix initially explored releasing seasons in two parts during the pandemic, co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said last year, primarily as a workaround to Covid-19-related delays. The company found that fans liked the approach, he said.
Of the 10 non-Netflix shows on the top-20 list, two were released in bulk and the other eight were weekly, Samba TV found. The most-watched shows came from a variety of platforms including HBO Max, Paramount Global’s Paramount+, Amazon. com ’s Prime Video and Walt Disney’s Disney+, and the data includes viewership of streaming shows that also appeared on traditional cable networks. Releasing a season in bulk makes it more likely people will watch it in its entirety, Samba TV found. To measure the completion rate of shows released in different ways, it calculated the share of viewers who watched the premiere and finale episode within 50 days of their respective releases. “Reacher,” Prime Video’s adaptation of Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” novels, had a completion rate of 58%, Samba TV found, as did Netflix’s “Virgin River,” which also was released in bulk. On the other hand, only one show released weekly—“The White Lotus,” an HBO comedy-drama about the guests and staff of a fictional resort—had a completion rate of more than 50%. The trade-off, Samba TV found, is that binge-model shows tend to fizzle more quickly than their weekly counterparts.
To capture the degree to which shows built audiences over time, Samba TV measured the growth between the number of people who watched the premiere episode within 50 days of its release and those who watched any episodes within 103 days of a show’s release.
Netlflix made all eight episodes of ‘Wednesday’ available at once. COLLECTION CIOPLEA/ NETFLIX/ EVERETT VLAD
For “Tulsa King,” a Paramount+ mob drama series starring Sylvester Stallone, more than four times as many households watched episodes in the full 103 days than watched the premiere in the first 50—a sign that its overall audience grew significantly as the weekly show went along. Among bulk-release shows, the best performer by that metric was Prime Video’s “Reacher,” whose viewership bump was 61%. “It’s a battle to figure out how you get discovered and get people to watch the entire season,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and chief executive of Samba TV.
Samba TV relied on a 103 day period in its analysis to capture viewing of each episode of shows released at different cadences with varying numbers of episodes in a like-for like way. Samba TV’s data only covers smart TVs, not mobile phones, iPads and other screens on which viewers might tune in. It is drawn from a panel of three million households, counting a cumulative of five minutes of viewing as a watch. The two-part release approach occasionally used by Netflix emerged as a sweet spot, Samba TV found: It has a higher completion rate than weekly shows and more staying power than binge-model shows.
Advocates of gradual releases say they keep audiences excited for new episodes and ensure customers stay with a service for many weeks to catch the entirety of a season. The approach also builds more buzz for a show, as people discuss with anticipation what may happen next, in turn drawing in fresh audiences.
The latest—and final—season of HBO’s “Succession,” a satirical comedy-drama about the family of a fictional media mogul, is a case in point: Social media goes ablaze every Sunday night when a new episode is released, making it difficult for people who don’t watch it almost immediately to avoid spoilers.
I understand the preference from the perspective of the subscribers, who would like to binge watch an entire series in one sitting (especially if it is well made). But it can also be counter-productive to your experience, as it is difficult to proces each individual episode and ponder or talk about it with work colleagues (the 'water cooler conversations'), building up hype for the next episode. Perhaps a middle road could serve both needs, release the series in batches of 2-3 episodes every week and withhold the final episode for its own week?
Last edited:
Synobun
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2006
- Messages
- 24,884
Netflix does this for its reality TV shows.
EgonSpengler
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2014
- Messages
- 12,260
Streamers Wrestle With Dilemma Of How Quickly to Release Content
BY SARAH KROUSE AND NATE RATTNER
Ever since Netf lix shook the entertainment world by releasing the entire first season of “House of Cards” in one fell swoop a decade ago, a debate has raged over whether that approach made any sense. Why, some wondered, would a streaming service pay top dollar for a show that users could consume in its entirety in a matter of days? Advocates of that approach, meanwhile, asked why streamers would stick to the weekly release format that defined legacy cable television when they had the flexibility to mix it up and give customers a more immediate payoff. The answer to the fundamental question of how best to release content, it turns out, is complicated.
“House of the Dragon” was last year’s most-watched streaming show, according to analytics provider Samba TV, and was released weekly on Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max and the HBO TV channel. The second-best, Netflix’s “Wednesday,” made all eight episodes available at the same time. An analysis by Samba TV of last year’s 20 most-viewed original streaming programs in the U.S. for The Wall Street Journal shows that both approaches have merits and pitfalls. Viewers are more likely to watch the entire season of a show that was released all at once, but such shows tend to have a shorter shelf life than the ones released weekly.
The issue of how to release content is of particular importance now that streaming ser-vices are struggling to hold on to subscribers. Consumers increasingly hop between services— which only require a monthly commitment—when they are done watching a specific show.
“Serial churning is really an existential threat that’s facing these streamers at this point,” said Evan Shapiro, a producer and adjunct media professor at Fordham University and New York University. That service- switching trend is forcing streamers to pay to reacquire the same customers, he said. Netflix largely stuck with its binge-release model, despite suffering quarterly subscriber declines for the first time in over a decade last year and reporting more modest subscriber growth this year than before the pandemic. “This enables viewers to lose themselves in stories they love,” the company said of the approach in a letter to investors late last year. “It’s hard to imagine, for example, how a Korean title like ‘Squid Game’ would have become a mega hit globally without the momentum that came from people being able to binge it,” Netflix said in that letter. The show, a 2021 dystopian drama about down-on their-luck adults risking their lives while playing traditional Korean children’s games on a secluded island, is Netflix’s most popular show ever.
More than 90% of original shows released last year on Netflix had the entire season made available on a single date, a significantly higher share than any of its streaming rivals, Ampere Analysis data show. Netflix had 10 of the 20 most-watched streaming shows last year, according to Samba TV, which collects data on what people watch on their smart TVs. Of these, seven were released all at once; the other three were split in two separate installments—a hybrid strategy that the company has been embracing lately for some of its buzzy programs. These were season four of “Stranger Things,” the fourth and final season of “Ozark” and the docuseries “Harry & Meghan.” Netflix initially explored releasing seasons in two parts during the pandemic, co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said last year, primarily as a workaround to Covid-19-related delays. The company found that fans liked the approach, he said.
Of the 10 non-Netflix shows on the top-20 list, two were released in bulk and the other eight were weekly, Samba TV found. The most-watched shows came from a variety of platforms including HBO Max, Paramount Global’s Paramount+, Amazon. com ’s Prime Video and Walt Disney’s Disney+, and the data includes viewership of streaming shows that also appeared on traditional cable networks. Releasing a season in bulk makes it more likely people will watch it in its entirety, Samba TV found. To measure the completion rate of shows released in different ways, it calculated the share of viewers who watched the premiere and finale episode within 50 days of their respective releases. “Reacher,” Prime Video’s adaptation of Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” novels, had a completion rate of 58%, Samba TV found, as did Netflix’s “Virgin River,” which also was released in bulk. On the other hand, only one show released weekly—“The White Lotus,” an HBO comedy-drama about the guests and staff of a fictional resort—had a completion rate of more than 50%. The trade-off, Samba TV found, is that binge-model shows tend to fizzle more quickly than their weekly counterparts.
To capture the degree to which shows built audiences over time, Samba TV measured the growth between the number of people who watched the premiere episode within 50 days of its release and those who watched any episodes within 103 days of a show’s release.
Netlflix made all eight episodes of ‘Wednesday’ available at once. COLLECTION CIOPLEA/ NETFLIX/ EVERETT VLAD
For “Tulsa King,” a Paramount+ mob drama series starring Sylvester Stallone, more than four times as many households watched episodes in the full 103 days than watched the premiere in the first 50—a sign that its overall audience grew significantly as the weekly show went along. Among bulk-release shows, the best performer by that metric was Prime Video’s “Reacher,” whose viewership bump was 61%. “It’s a battle to figure out how you get discovered and get people to watch the entire season,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and chief executive of Samba TV.
Samba TV relied on a 103 day period in its analysis to capture viewing of each episode of shows released at different cadences with varying numbers of episodes in a like-for like way. Samba TV’s data only covers smart TVs, not mobile phones, iPads and other screens on which viewers might tune in. It is drawn from a panel of three million households, counting a cumulative of five minutes of viewing as a watch. The two-part release approach occasionally used by Netflix emerged as a sweet spot, Samba TV found: It has a higher completion rate than weekly shows and more staying power than binge-model shows.
Advocates of gradual releases say they keep audiences excited for new episodes and ensure customers stay with a service for many weeks to catch the entirety of a season. The approach also builds more buzz for a show, as people discuss with anticipation what may happen next, in turn drawing in fresh audiences.
The latest—and final—season of HBO’s “Succession,” a satirical comedy-drama about the family of a fictional media mogul, is a case in point: Social media goes ablaze every Sunday night when a new episode is released, making it difficult for people who don’t watch it almost immediately to avoid spoilers.
I've come to actively dislike the model of dropping all episodes at once.
I don't like binging shows myself, but at first, I took a 'live and let live' philosophy and figured if other folks want to shove a whole show into their faces, they should go ahead. The fact that all the episodes were available didn't mean I had to watch them all at once, and I figured I could have conversations with friends and on the web about the episodes I'd seen and not the ones I hadn't. But the loss of the proverbial water cooler conversations turned out to be near-total. I recall being completely unable to discuss Daredevil with a friend who was as much a fan as I was. He'd steam through the whole season in a weekend, and I would take a week or two. And his solution to wanting to avoid spoiling anything for me was to not say anything at all. After smashing through 13 episodes in 2-3 days, he couldn't ever remember in which episode something had happened. And 10-15 days after watching it, he'd forgotten key lines of dialogue and plot-points, sometimes entire scenes. Or perhaps he hadn't absorbed them in the first place - a short season of television might be 4-6 hours; compare that with a feature film, which you naturally watch in one sitting and where 2½ hours is stretching our attention to its breaking point. Daredevil was 13 episodes. I would be impressed with anyone who watched 12 hours of something in 2-3 days, and then 2 days later could recall the 3rd-4th hours in detail and in sequence. And of course various websites weren't even that considerate of avoiding spoilers. How could they be? Also, authors of articles and producers of podcasts don't go episode-by-episode when a show drops all at once, they take it all together, so a show dropping all at once means that I can't read any articles or listen to any podcasts about it until I've finished the whole thing, when my enthusiasm is naturally winding down.
So as a consumer, I pretty much hate the "all at once" model of releasing a new series. Some services are releasing multiple episodes up front, but not the whole series. 2 episodes is okay for me, but Peacock released the first four episodes of Mrs Davis on the first day, and that was too much. For the first weekend it was out, I had to avoid articles, social media and podcasts about a show I'd had circled on my calendar for months. It actively tampered my enthusiasm. (As it turns out in that particular case, no one I know and none of the podcasts I listen to regularly are interested in Mrs. Davis anyway, so it was moot. But the point still stands.
)
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2008
- Messages
- 26,973
Amazon does something like this for their originals.
I prefer series dropping all at once and watching the episodes on my own schedule and not having to wait a week between them. If 10 episodes are available, I get to control when and how I watch them.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
