Tag Archives: Netflix

Emmy Voters Just Did Something the Networks Couldn’t—Stop Netflix

Leave a reply

Emmy voters just did something

Last night, the networks found an unexpected savior in their efforts to keep Netflix at bay: Emmy voters. Despite entering this year’s race with an impressive 31 nominations, the network came up empty during the 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. As I wrote at Quartz,

Netflix seemed primed for a big night, after last week’s Creative Arts wins seemed to indicate that Orange is the New Black would be lauded. Host Seth Meyers acknowledged Netflix’s expected big night in his opening monologue when he joked, “Not very nice when someone younger comes along, is it, cable?” And Netflix was at the center of one of the evening’s early highlights: a hilarious commercial that ran during the telecast in which Gervais crossed paths with characters from House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. It was supposed to be the first of many memorable Netflix moments on Emmy night. But it turned out to be the only one.

I also touch upon a little-known fact about Emmy voters: sometimes as few as 50 of them make the decisions for each category.

Emmy voters just did something the networks couldn’t—stop Netflix 

How Amazon Built a Studio That’s Finally Challenging Netflix

Leave a reply

transparent

As Amazon prepares to launch its third pilot season, I had a lengthy chat with Amazon Studios director Roy Price about his company’s strategy, measuring success, his terrific new series Transparent and competing with Netflix. He answered so many of my questions about Amazon, including what defines a successful series for them:

The main thing we’re focusing on is making Prime fantastic. And one of the things people really respond to is original new series, so we’re paying attention to, are people engaged with the show? Does it add value to the service as a whole? So it’s about views, and talking about the shows, and if you watch the whole season, how did you rate the show…Basically, do people really seem to value the show as part of the service?

Last year, we premiered Alpha House and Betas, and they premiered at, and hung around at, the number one and two series for awhile, so that’s very encouraging, because it shows that people are really getting into it and heavily sampling the shows. That’s the kind of thing we want to see, that it becomes a meaningful part of the value that the service provides. Ultimately, you’d like to see more people joining the service, and you’d like to see that people who watch the shows and enjoy the shows renew their subscription.

Price, who was a terrific interview, also talked about Amazon’s rationale for not disclosing ratings, how the public pilot process really works and whether Amazon considered picking up beloved-but-canceled shows like Community and Enlisted.

How Amazon built a studio that’s finally challenging Netflix

The Five Ways American TV Has Changed Forever

Leave a reply

five ways american TV has changed

That’s a wrap on TCA summer press tour, which means that it’s time for one last story before I leave L.A.: a roundup of noteworthy developments from press tour, which reveal several new truths about the TV industry. Chief among them: Nothing is a ratings guarantee — except football.

Somewhere in the vicinity of 100 shows were paneled at press tour, but as CBS president and CEO Les Moonves pointed out, “When you come back next year, not all of them are still going to be on the air. Even ours. However, this is a sure thing.” He was referring to Thursday Night Football, which is moving to CBS for the first eight weeks of the NFL season (after which it will return to NFL Network, where it has aired since 2006).

As NFL commissioner Roger Goodell noted, “Sunday Night Football is now the number one franchise in all of television. Not just in sports, but in all of television.” Sunday Night Football was indeed the top-rated show on TV last season, averaging 21.5 million viewers. CBS and Fox’s Sunday afternoon broadcasts draw a similarly-sized audience, while ESPN’s Monday Night Football averaged 13.7 million viewers. And the Super Bowl is always the most-watched program each year, with a record 112.2 million viewers tuning in last February. As such, Goodell expects that Thursday Night Football will be “the biggest thing” to happen on TV this season.

There’s lots more about 3D TV, 4K TV, Hulu, Amazon, binge-watching, late-night and series based on comic books. Take a look; now that press tour is over, I’m going to sleep for several days!

The five ways American TV has changed forever 

‘Squawk Alley’: Next Act for Netflix

Leave a reply

I returned to CNBC today (the video of my first appearance, several months earlier, was not posted online) to make an appearance on Squawk Alley, where I discussed Netflix’s upcoming shows, its Emmy nominations and what’s next. Here’s a clip from my segment:

I made this appearance just a few hours after taking a redeye back from L.A. (where I left press tour), and was going on about 90 minutes sleep. Thankfully I made it through the segment without nodding off!

Next Act for Netflix

Netflix Has Gone From Emmys Crasher to Guest of Honor

Leave a reply

netflix emmys crasher

I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday for TCA summer press tour, and one of my first assignments was this Quartz reaction to today’s Emmy nominations. As the streaming network more than doubled its 2013 nomination tally, from 14 to 31, it’s shifted from interloper to frontrunner.

But today’s impressive tally also increases the pressure on Emmy night. After last year’s Emmys, I wrote that Netflix was one of the night’s biggest winners, even though it didn’t win any major awards. Last year, just earning those nominations and smaller wins (like the directing Emmy for House of Cards) legitimized Netflix in the same way that early Emmy victories had once done for HBO, AMC, and FX.

This year, however, House of Cards and Orange is the New Black have catapulted from “just happy to be here” to frontrunner status. That means on August 25, Netflix needs to win one of the big trophies—outstanding comedy series for Orange, or outstanding actor in a drama for Kevin Spacey of House of Cards—to truly be considered one of television’s elite networks.

Plus, charts!

Netflix has gone from Emmys crasher to guest of honor

Not Even Those Who Run Netflix Shows Know How Popular They Really Are

Leave a reply

not even those who run Netflix

This is crazy to me. We’ve all known for years that Netflix has stubbornly refused to release any ratings information on its shows. Now, I wrote at Quartz, it turns out that not even the people who make Netflix’s most popular (we think) shows have any idea how many viewers actually watch their programming.

“It’s like, ‘I’m a hit —I think,’” Orange is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan told The Hollywood Reporter. The lack of viewership metrics from Netflix “makes it hard to negotiate later,” she says, referring to the standing industry practice in which the stars and producers of hits shows leverage ratings success for significant raises in a show’s third or fourth season.

I also wrote about Netflix’s excuses for withholding that data — and why they don’t hold water.

Not even those who run Netflix shows know how popular they really are 

How Apple Can Make Its Streaming Service Better Than Netflix

Leave a reply

apple streaming service

Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is in talks with Comcast to team up for a new streaming-television service that would use an Apple set-top box. At Quartz, I suggested four ways that Apple could make a splash and make its new service instantly better than Netflix. For starters, Use the Force:

In 2010, Apple finally landed exclusive digital rights to the Beatles catalog. Now, it should aggressively pursue the holy grail of exclusive movie digital rights: the Star Wars films, which still have yet to be released via any digital platform. (Remember, Lucasfilm is now owned by Disney, whose chairman and CEO, Bob Iger, sits on Apple’s Board of Directors.) Using the films to launch Apple’s streaming service, especially as anticipation builds toward the next Star Wars film, due out in December 2015, would be reason enough for many viewers to immediately get on board.

Assuming Apple goes ahead with the service, it needs to once again embrace its traditional role of innovator, not follower.

How Apple can make its streaming service better than Netflix

Five Ways Television Can Save Itself in 2014

Leave a reply

five-ways-television

Happy new year! I rung in 2014 at Quartz with — what else? — this list of five resolutions that the networks should make for the coming year to thrive in this strange new world of streaming, stacking and binge-viewing. Among them: Plan for life after talent competitions.

For the past decade, talent competitions like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars have dominated the TV landscape, but across the board, almost all of those shows are showing signs of fatigue. Idol, Dancing, America’s Got Talent, and The X Factor’s  ratings were all down sharply this season (only relative newbie The Voice is still robustly chugging along), despite various attempts at shuffling formats and judges.

Even with the ratings drop-off, most of these shows are still solid performers, but they are definitely closer to the end of their run. Given the vast amount of real estate they occupy on their respective networks, it’s time to come up with contingency plans for when these shows do take their final bows. Otherwise they’ll be repeating the mistakes of ABC and NBC, whose respective schedules took years to recover from overreliance on the likes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Jay Leno Show. It could be argued that they still haven’t recovered.

Resolutions are easy to make, but very hard to follow. I’ll check back in with this story at the end of the year and see how many of these the networks actually stuck with.

Five ways television can save itself in 2014

NBC Just Bought a Network to Cash in on Toddlers and Tablets

Leave a reply

qz-nbc-just-bought

In my latest piece for Quartz, I looked at NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment’s acquisition of preschool network Sprout, and focused on one key area that the company will be looking to improve: Sprout’s paltry streaming app.

While Sprout reaches 60 million homes and boasts 1.5 billion on-demand views since its 2005 launch, its app numbers are less impressive. Sprout’s app, launched in March 2012, has been downloaded 1.5 million times. Meanwhile, the Watch Disney Junior app, which Disney debuted in June 2012, has already been downloaded 5 million times, generating more than 650 million video views. Nickelodeon, which introduced a new app for its flagship network in February,plans to roll out a Nick Jr. app for preschoolers next spring.

However NBCUniversal decides to overhaul Sprout’s app, it had better do it quick: many kids, mine including, have abandoned it completely.

NBC just bought a network to cash in on toddlers and tablets