Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos spent a good portion of his presentation Sunday at the Television Critics Association press tour refuting information about the viewership of the streaming service’s original series offered last week by NBC.
Ted Sarandos called out NBC’s report and claims that it “doesn’t reflect any sense of reality of anything that we keep track of.” Sarandos continued to poke fun of the broadcast network during Netflix’s TSA panel, asking “Why NBC would use their lunch slot with you to talk about our ratings. Maybe because it’s more fun than talking about NBC ratings.” He added that NBC’s ratings on Netflix’s original series, such as Jessica Jones, Master of None, and Orange is the New Black, are “remarkably inaccurate.”
For Netflix, it comes down to the creative process and aiming their content to their subscribers. Sarandos explained: “Once we give a number for a show, every show will be benchmarked off that show. We may build a show for 30 million people and we may build a show for 2 million people. And we have shows that do that. [Revealing ratings puts] a lot of creative pressure on talent [and] has been remarkably negative in terms of its effect on shows.”
Netflix doesn’t seem to be completely interested in high ratings, but rather signing up new customers, while retaining loyal subscribers to pay a monthly fee. It’s more important to give subscribers entertainment value for their dollars instead of getting a large audience to watch a new TV show. Netflix’s business model is very different from broadcast networks because the streaming service tracks subscribers and not viewers for advertisers and marketers, which is why broadcast TV is free with commercials instead of paying $8 a month for content. So it’s in Netflix’s best interest to cast a wide net to gain the most subscribers and offering original and thought-provoking TV shows will certainly keep people from cancelling their service.
duh. NBC was so dumb for that, why don't they take the money invested in that so called research and apply it in the production of a decent show? They surely need it.
duh. NBC was so dumb for that, why don't they take the money invested in that so called research and apply it in the production of a decent show? They surely need it.
Ikr? they have like 2 or 3 good shows going for them, everything else gets cancelled before a 2nd season
