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hours viewed?

they may not share that info, but they know.

That makes sense to me

Distributors (streaming or not) have very detailed data on how users interact with their platform. The big thing here, is what they are watching and who the person is watching it. Generally you look at hours viewed (over a certain timeframe) but there are lots of metrics you can spin depending on the specifics, and if its ad supported or not and lots of different variations on hours viewed based on other criteria as well, such as Average Audience and some other more complicated but fairly industry standard metrics.

Its a very very complicated process, but in short, they evaluate how much its being watched, who is watching (as in are more valuable customers watching this vs less valuable ones), when they are watching it (do they watch it within the first week or is it something they do later which isn't as good)

They then try to figure out if the show is worthwhile, if they ax it, will these people cut their subscription? If they renew it will they keep it? Will having this content renewed get more customers? Will it help keep some customers?

And then cost which is most important -- you put money amounts on each option and see how it looks. It needs to make sense economically. Even a poor performing show might make sense if its inexpensive or has their best customers watching. A fantastic performing show may be crap if its not fantastic enough or people don't really watch it on release or it comes for their lower-tier users which aren't very valuable, and more. It always comes down to the money and everything at the end needs to be reflected in dollars

There are a nearly endless amount of ways to spin and no two shows or companies are gonna be the exact same, its a mix of art and science and a lot of assumptions and data.

And no, netflix is not in anyway "better" than others, they are actually long regarded as the worst in the industry at this stuff.

There's also plenty of contractual and political stuff going on behind the scenes though, don't discount any of that. They may have hard numbers, but in the end they negotiate and there's more going on than a single show in a bubble, so its a lot of things to look at, not just a few numbers, but how does it impact other things as well.

Short answer: no one knows.

Showrunners have expressed their displeasure, specifically with Netflix, because there is no concrete information. We get bits and pieces from interviews here and there, but none of it is consistent. Some have said viewings within 30 days, others have said viewings within 60 days. Still others have said viewings within 28 days. Neil Gaiman recently said he was told completion rate was a factor for "Sandman," while other showrunners have mentioned how many people start the show but abandon it, tracked even down to the minute that people bail out.

Whatever the case, it's a moving target. A popular show or film one week may not be considered the same the next. "6 Underground was deemed a hit and a sequel was in the works, until suddenly two months later both parts of that statement were untrue. No one knows what changed.

The showrunner on "The Babysitters Club" gave a great, insightful interview that explored how little they were given by Netflix, but hints at how much data Netflix has, which has led to some wild shit. She mentioned an exec told her that, for example, shows that feature X in the first Y minutes are more likely to be completed

Which is complete claptrap, but it shows that a) execs have access to a fuckton of info but b) they don't know what to do with it except to make very broad assumptions. All we really know is that they don't share it with anyone, including the people making content for them.

Business Insider published an article about Netflix's renewal process:

> The company also factors in how many viewers might tune in and how the title will perform across other regions of the world — the latter being a crucial component, given Netflix's international ambitions.

> That can be particularly useful when assessing whether to acquire certain IP, said a third former Netflix exec.

> The question of whether to renew a series for an additional season is where discussions can get "contentious," said the third insider.

> Hits like "Bridgerton" or "The Witcher" are no-brainers. But "any other show on the service is a fight," this person said, adding that even shows that repeatedly hit Netflix's Top 10 list may not garner the viewing hours or completion rates considered high enough for the CS&A researchers to offer a recommendation to renew. This can sometimes spur a difference of opinion between show execs and data analysts, particularly on shows that have smaller audiences but speak to underrepresented audiences, this person said.

> At Netflix, said the exec, "the bar is so, so high."

It's by minutes.

https://twitter.com/TVGrimReaper/status/1605623417138319360

Thanks for the detailed answer. I’m really interested in reading about these kinds of things (the business of the entertainment industry? Not sure how to call it). I have a couple questions after reading you answer:

Is watching a show on an Ad-version of the streaming site worth more to them?

If a show was recently added to another service, is that a sign that the original one may get rid of it from theirs or value it less? For example, I really like this show called The Orville. They just got added to Disney Plus even though they’re labeled as a Hulu Original (it originally aired from Fox). I’m confused if this interaction has anything to do with the future of the show and season 4.

Thanks again.

>Thanks for the detailed answer. I’m really interested in reading about these kinds of things (the business of the entertainment industry? Not sure how to call it). I have a couple questions after reading you answer:

You can look into some materials on media distribution and content acquisition, plus some basic media finance stuff should help you do a bit to learn. Its unfortunately though one of the things that is semi-secretive, so many learn on the job. Generally stay away from production related things other than just to get a basic understanding, the stuff we're talking about is distribution.

>Is watching a show on an Ad-version of the streaming site worth more to them?

There is no single, uniform answer to this unfortunately. It can be all over the place depending on all sorts of factors

>If a show was recently added to another service, is that a sign that the original one may get rid of it from theirs or value it less? For example, I really like this show called The Orville. They just got added to Disney Plus even though they’re labeled as a Hulu Original (it originally aired from Fox). I’m confused if this interaction has anything to do with the future of the show and season 4.

Ok, so you could have just asked this one... this was your actual question -- anyways, Orville seems to be an outlier in that it has some complicated contractual situations stemming from the Disney purchase of Fox, no one appears to be entirely sure what the deal with the show is. What we do know is that The Orville is supposedly a pretty expensive show to make and that getting S4 together may be tough as all the actors options expired. There's odd stuff with this one, you picked one show that as an extreme outlier, so a lot of the metrics and things we're talking about arent potentially as important as a variety other factors going on with this show behind the scenes.

Thanks! And yeah that was my true question but I wanted to ask what was in my title for both more general information and to not potentially violate any sub rules. This has been really insightful though. Of course my favorite show is the complicated one lol

All of these companies owning other companies does get very confusing.

Usually by the amount of minutes watched vs. cost of production. Although sometimes they just cancel shows for no logical reason.

cough cough Warrior Nun cough cough

Just to add to the other users great points-

Acquisitions by streamers/broadcasters can be by program (by season, run of season commitments, life of series commitments), they can also be acquired through output agreements with certain distributors (this gives one streamer/broadcaster priority over the programs they want from that company up to a certain spend per year), and then also through company mergers and acquisitions (like the Disney/Fox example above - this is when you’ll start to see the catalogue switch between streamers but licence periods from the old deals still need to be honoured so they’re often on both for a little bit).

Outside of that most new programs are under exclusive licence to one channel, or exclusive licence per broadcast segment (streaming, pay tv, free to air). Older programs can be under exclusive licence too (so one place has the whole series) and that is a premium cost. Having programs across multiple services may seem like it diminishes value but depending on the show it can also just mean it’s evergreen and has value everywhere so exploit it for what they can.

Before shows are made, production companies aim to get a distributor on board who will pitch to streamers/broadcasters or to get funding as a commissioned program. The first protects the inherent rights in the program and the latter gets the producers money up front by selling off those rights to the network. The show you mentioned is a co-production between 20th Century Fox and a smaller production company, Disney are both the distributor for S1-S3 after buying out Fox, and now also the network/acquirer for those seasons. The next season depends on if Disney take their first look option to continue on as co-producer - if not, and depending how the rights were structured, the production company could pitch the series elsewhere or Disney might still act as the distributor and decide whether to pitch elsewhere/sell (without offering financial backing to commissioning the production).

Obviously hard to know how anything will pan out without seeing how the deals were structured. It’s a super interesting area though - Deadline usually have info on all those deals as they go down.

In Australia, we have a service called Binge which is the streaming arm of a pay tv network. They mostly have Fox, HBO and AMC shows but now HBO and AMC are launching in Australia, those shows will start to move over while the Fox/Disney stuff is already on its way out. Binge doesn’t have too much commissioned/owned content so they’ll need to pivot to investing in that type of content if they want to stay relevant (this also means they become the distributor and the production company which as we can see from all these mergers and acquisitions is the sweet spot media companies want to be in).

Edit: Orville is actually licensed to segments (like I mentioned above) in Australia which is cool - linear tv service + that channels streaming arm (which is a free public broadcaster) + Disney+. So you can see here there’s value having a non exclusive licence if you can see where you can attract a wider audience base (ppl watching on this particular linear tv network and the free streaming platform aren’t likely to cross over but might eventually if they recognise the programming on D+).

New subscribers for that show

How do you know which subscribers are signing up for which show? At any given time I sub, these services are airing dozens of different shows

Because they track the first show a new subscriber watches. That’s big data.

Internally

16 brapples