Essay on Netflix, their approach to content, and "casual viewing"

Thanks for posting. Very detailed article/essay! It seems Netflix understood the younger audience and built a business model around their lifestyle habits.
 
I love this part:

"Like all Netflix movies, Bubble and The Bubble floated away as quickly as they appeared, becoming tiles in the company’s sprawling mosaic of content, destined to be autoplayed on laptops whose owners have fallen asleep."

But the truth is that I don't think Netflix's content production strategy is that different from broadcast TV. Lots of filler and some marquee attractions.
 
ahalpert said:
But the truth is that I don't think Netflix's content production strategy is that different from broadcast TV. Lots of filler and some marquee attractions.
Click to expand...

I think the difference is that linear TV expected and even needed (due to advertising or subscribers) their filler shows to have a reasonable audience. The Netflix model seems to assume zero or very little audience for much of their stuff.
 
drboffa said:
I think the difference is that linear TV expected and even needed (due to advertising or subscribers) their filler shows to have a reasonable audience. The Netflix model seems to assume zero or very little audience for much of their stuff.
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I sympathize with the writer's perspective and broadly agree, though I have a few reservations.

First of all, it just sounds like Netflix operates like TV. People multitask while they watch TV. It’s unlikely that Netflix doesn’t care about audience engagement, but it’s clear they prioritize having a diverse library of “content” to check off boxes—whether by filmmaker, actor, or subject matter.

There’s also a hint of elitism in the essay. The author suggests that Netflix produces forgettable garbage with big-name stars that nobody watches. While I can’t verify Netflix’s viewership claims, it’s evident that much of the global audience enjoys consuming exactly that kind of content..

Take, for example, Judd Apatow’s The Bubble. On IMDb, it has 29,000 ratings—roughly 10–25% of what his major hit movies have, but significantly more than some of his recent made-for-TV films and series. This suggests that The Bubble performed more like made-for-TV content than theatrical releases.

The crux of the anti-Netflix argument here is that it's hurting Cinema. That may be true, but I think only indirectly and perhaps only temporarily. If Netflix wants to make prestigious but forgettable crap for their platform, it doesn't impede other people from making True Cinema except in that it ties up talented people and distorts the pay scale for writers/directors/actors/producers.

Those issues can be corrected once Netflix stops producing a torrent of material and overpaying for productions.

Cinema can be quite nimble and doesn't require massive institutional or physical infrastructure, unlike broadcast or cable TV. You could wipe out all the studios and directors working today and a new crop would rise in their place as long as there are still movie theaters to show their work. There were fears during the pandemic that theaters would go extinct. That did not come to pass even though the global box office is pulling in half or so of what it did pre-pandemic (adjusted for inflation).

There is still great Cinema being made. Personally, I'm excited to see Nosferatu even though I usually don't watch horror.
 
I'd agree 100% that there is still great cinema being made, especially (although not exclusively) outside of the US. Some of my favorite movies have been from the past 5-10 years.

Having said that, my sense is that it's getting increasingly difficult to make a living from making films. At least this seems to be the case in the US, where we don't have a robust government funding system for less commercial projects (I have no idea how industries are doing abroad).
 
drboffa said:
I'd agree 100% that there is still great cinema being made, especially (although not exclusively) outside of the US. Some of my favorite movies have been from the past 5-10 years.

Having said that, my sense is that it's getting increasingly difficult to make a living from making films. At least this seems to be the case in the US, where we don't have a robust government funding system for less commercial projects (I have no idea how industries are doing abroad).
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I don't know much about what indy filmmakers are earning. I'm not sure it's ever been a viable path to economic security.

When I think of true indy filmmakers who never sold out, I think of Richard Linklater. The internet claims his net worth is $8 million. If true, that's pretty good. But if that's the ceiling of net worth after a long, successful career then it's a bleak outlook for everyone else.

My first job after college was at a successful documentary production company. Well, it turned into an internship after the grant they were going to pay me with "fell through." It was run by two women in their early 40s, one of whom took a side gig writing ad copy during my 6-month stint there. The other was married to a Wall Street type who provided for her.

Maybe filmmaking has gotten worse economically. I don't think it was ever great.

Now you have a huge divide between name brand talent attracting huge fees and below-the-line crew who are increasingly ground into dust. People are saying that the middle class in Hollywood is dead. Of course, the situation of a regular crew person is distinct from that of an indy director.

It's the same pattern you see in academia and medicine and so many places. Administrators replace tenured professors with adjuncts who have fewer rights and lower earning power. Hospitals try to force nurses to take on more and more work for the same money. The quality of everything gets worse.
 
I think that appears to be the biggest difference, at least based on what I'm seeing and hearing from others (I didn't get into video production until the mid 2010s). While most people weren't becoming fabulously wealthy working in the TV/film industry there was the possibility of making a living. It seems like that possibility is disappearing for many people. The irony is that there is more "content" being made than ever—people just aren't being compensated for it.

And as a former academic with a nurse partner, I'm all too familiar with how workers in those fields are being squeezed by admins and corporate overlords 😄 (as is happening in industries across the board)
 
This question was asked on another media site.

Can IMAX Preserve and Revive the Film Industry?

My thoughts were:

In a world of 8 billion humans as of December 2023, there were 1,772 IMAX theaters located in 90 countries, the bulk of which, 1,693 are in commercial multiplexes. These include IMAX variations such as IMAX 3D, IMAX Dome, and Digital IMAX.

With a ratio of about 4.5 million people per IMAX screen, IMAX cannot preserve and revive the film industry? As a generalization, IMAX is really only available to the upper end of the socioeconomic viewing audience who live within reach of one of the multiplexes that have one of the IMAX screens. Even the financially better off viewing audience who live in rural areas are often many miles away from the nearest IMAX facility.


The "Casual Viewing" article prompts a lot of questions that I think weren't addressed in the analysis of Netflix and its impact on the viewing public. Which I think are fundamental to understanding what is happening to our industry overall. And it all comes to affordability and the bottom line.

When it comes to conventional cinema vs streaming, a similar argument to the IMAX one exists, but with different numbers applying. The cinema industry has around 208,000 theaters worldwide. The film industry is struggling to find a sound economic model to base its future on against the proliferation of streaming services. Streaming, sadly, will be the death of large scale screen public viewing, period. So regardless of the comment "... that Netflix produces forgettable garbage with big-name stars that nobody watches." the fact that it is 'there' and has an impact is something the film industry business model is really struggling to combat economically. It's all based on the bottom line, of what viewers can afford and what sacrifices are they are prepared to make that may affect their viewing experience. And because of low-cost access to countless film and TV productions at virtually zero cost, "casual viewing" has become a thing, a reality. Some people love just having Netflix running in the background of their lives, just like people used to listen to radio shows as a background to their day. Today, it's the younger viewer who is driving this casual viewer trend. Something that's carried over from younger viewers growing up with casual viewing on sites like YouTube.

What numbers may reinforce the viewpoint that the TV and film industry business model is in trouble?

2024 figures
The Average for a Big Mac meal in LA today is $10.19
The average cost for a cinema ticket in LA is about 11.90
The average concession stand spend in theaters in LA is $8.15

Therefore, the average spend for an individual to go to a cinema in metro LA in 2024 today is just on $30.24 if he/she has a bite to eat first, or after, and buys some popcorn and a drink at the multiplex.

Let us take as an example a family of five if they adhere to the 'averages' as defined above. That's a total spend of $151.20 for a visit to the cinema.

Let's put this in context. The average weekly income in Los Angeles, California in 2024 is $1,311.00, which is based on an average annual salary of $68,222.

Could a family afford a weekly family movie outing on a weekly income of $1,311 in a single income family? I guess yes if they want to spend $7,862.40, which is greater than 10% of their annual income on movie going. Consider the alternative options they have. A monthly Netflix (Standard, no ads) subscription in LA today is $!5.49 a month. An annual $185.88 Netflix family subscription provides a family of five media access 24/7 365 days a year for $0.50 a day. This breaks down to $0.10 cents per head per day for a family of five. Regardless of the quality on offer.

Just on pure economics alone, the cinema film industry is rapidly becoming a very poor business model. The streaming industry is where the adult visual story telling world is moving to. It's attracting actors, directors and producers who were traditionally big screen. They are being attracted by the budgets on offer that a lot of cinema productions cannot compete with. "Stranger Things" on Netflix had a budget of $30 million per episode. Some movie productions struggle to raise that. As of the third quarter of 2024, Netflix had 84.8 million paid subscribers in the United States and Canada. Multiply that by three viewers average per subscription. That is 254.4 million viewer eyeballs with 24/7 365 day access. All for $0.10 cents a day per head. As far as Netflix is concerned, it doesn't worry them too much if people don't watch a lot of it. It's the Adobe model. They don't care if you use Photoshop one day a month or thirty. They get their monthly blood money. Likewise, they can afford to have people not watch, or have a production tank badly. A movie studio doesn't have that luxury and cannot do that with a cinema production.

I cannot see any movie based industry model that can come anywhere close to competing with the streaming juggernauts. And we have only considered the impact on the movie industry of one, Netflix. How many other streaming choices are there? Too many to list here. There is a narrow segment of the cinema industry that is making money. Its main viewers are in the 16-28 year age group. That's the action movie franchises. You just have to look at the stats from July 2024 on Crossscreen Media's site to see where the cinema industry is going. This action movie segment accounted for 54% of the box office receipts in 2022, an all-time high. As of 2023 this segment accounts for 28% of receipts. 23% being the last 30-year average. The viewers supporting this segment of the industry comprise a lot of young singles that have very little in the way of financial burdens and responsibility that young families are taking on. With money to spend, they are the ones going to the movies. Without them, the movie industry as we have known it in the past is, bye, bye!

Summing up, there is a production business for us to be involved in and with, but it's not going to be the traditional "film" industry as such. Bar for a few of us. And if you are in the "Indy" film production business, you had better have a reasonable deal with Netflix or one of the other streaming giants for any hope of major success.

Chris Young

https://crossscreen.media/state-of-the-screens/the-economics-of-movie-theaters-in-2024/
 
Great post Chris. I am outside of the cinema world for work but as a citizen, I do not understand why major release movies need to be so expensive to make? People like stories in the end but for some reason $300-$400 million needs to be involved to make the movies and then crying about how the industry is dying. Seems like a lot of hubris is involved.
 
cyvideo said:
This question was asked on another media site.

Can IMAX Preserve and Revive the Film Industry?

My thoughts were:

In a world of 8 billion humans as of December 2023, there were 1,772 IMAX theaters located in 90 countries, the bulk of which, 1,693 are in commercial multiplexes. These include IMAX variations such as IMAX 3D, IMAX Dome, and Digital IMAX.

With a ratio of about 4.5 million people per IMAX screen, IMAX cannot preserve and revive the film industry? As a generalization, IMAX is really only available to the upper end of the socioeconomic viewing audience who live within reach of one of the multiplexes that have one of the IMAX screens. Even the financially better off viewing audience who live in rural areas are often many miles away from the nearest IMAX facility.


The "Casual Viewing" article prompts a lot of questions that I think weren't addressed in the analysis of Netflix and its impact on the viewing public. Which I think are fundamental to understanding what is happening to our industry overall. And it all comes to affordability and the bottom line.

When it comes to conventional cinema vs streaming, a similar argument to the IMAX one exists, but with different numbers applying. The cinema industry has around 208,000 theaters worldwide. The film industry is struggling to find a sound economic model to base its future on against the proliferation of streaming services. Streaming, sadly, will be the death of large scale screen public viewing, period. So regardless of the comment "... that Netflix produces forgettable garbage with big-name stars that nobody watches." the fact that it is 'there' and has an impact is something the film industry business model is really struggling to combat economically. It's all based on the bottom line, of what viewers can afford and what sacrifices are they are prepared to make that may affect their viewing experience. And because of low-cost access to countless film and TV productions at virtually zero cost, "casual viewing" has become a thing, a reality. Some people love just having Netflix running in the background of their lives, just like people used to listen to radio shows as a background to their day. Today, it's the younger viewer who is driving this casual viewer trend. Something that's carried over from younger viewers growing up with casual viewing on sites like YouTube.

What numbers may reinforce the viewpoint that the TV and film industry business model is in trouble?

2024 figures
The Average for a Big Mac meal in LA today is $10.19
The average cost for a cinema ticket in LA is about 11.90
The average concession stand spend in theaters in LA is $8.15

Therefore, the average spend for an individual to go to a cinema in metro LA in 2024 today is just on $30.24 if he/she has a bite to eat first, or after, and buys some popcorn and a drink at the multiplex.

Let us take as an example a family of five if they adhere to the 'averages' as defined above. That's a total spend of $151.20 for a visit to the cinema.

Let's put this in context. The average weekly income in Los Angeles, California in 2024 is $1,311.00, which is based on an average annual salary of $68,222.

Could a family afford a weekly family movie outing on a weekly income of $1,311 in a single income family? I guess yes if they want to spend $7,862.40, which is greater than 10% of their annual income on movie going. Consider the alternative options they have. A monthly Netflix (Standard, no ads) subscription in LA today is $!5.49 a month. An annual $185.88 Netflix family subscription provides a family of five media access 24/7 365 days a year for $0.50 a day. This breaks down to $0.10 cents per head per day for a family of five. Regardless of the quality on offer.

Just on pure economics alone, the cinema film industry is rapidly becoming a very poor business model. The streaming industry is where the adult visual story telling world is moving to. It's attracting actors, directors and producers who were traditionally big screen. They are being attracted by the budgets on offer that a lot of cinema productions cannot compete with. "Stranger Things" on Netflix had a budget of $30 million per episode. Some movie productions struggle to raise that. As of the third quarter of 2024, Netflix had 84.8 million paid subscribers in the United States and Canada. Multiply that by three viewers average per subscription. That is 254.4 million viewer eyeballs with 24/7 365 day access. All for $0.10 cents a day per head. As far as Netflix is concerned, it doesn't worry them too much if people don't watch a lot of it. It's the Adobe model. They don't care if you use Photoshop one day a month or thirty. They get their monthly blood money. Likewise, they can afford to have people not watch, or have a production tank badly. A movie studio doesn't have that luxury and cannot do that with a cinema production.

I cannot see any movie based industry model that can come anywhere close to competing with the streaming juggernauts. And we have only considered the impact on the movie industry of one, Netflix. How many other streaming choices are there? Too many to list here. There is a narrow segment of the cinema industry that is making money. Its main viewers are in the 16-28 year age group. That's the action movie franchises. You just have to look at the stats from July 2024 on Crossscreen Media's site to see where the cinema industry is going. This action movie segment accounted for 54% of the box office receipts in 2022, an all-time high. As of 2023 this segment accounts for 28% of receipts. 23% being the last 30-year average. The viewers supporting this segment of the industry comprise a lot of young singles that have very little in the way of financial burdens and responsibility that young families are taking on. With money to spend, they are the ones going to the movies. Without them, the movie industry as we have known it in the past is, bye, bye!

Summing up, there is a production business for us to be involved in and with, but it's not going to be the traditional "film" industry as such. Bar for a few of us. And if you are in the "Indy" film production business, you had better have a reasonable deal with Netflix or one of the other streaming giants for any hope of major success.

Chris Young

https://crossscreen.media/state-of-the-screens/the-economics-of-movie-theaters-in-2024/
Click to expand...
I agree with some of what you say but I think some of the specifics are off.

Nobody ever went to the movies every week! Not many people, anyway.

According to Gallup polling, the average number of times an American went to the movies per year during the years 2001-2007 was 4.8. (About a third of the country went to no movies at all, so the average is higher among moviegoers but they don't say what it is. But only 29% of the country went to 5 or more movies per year. 39% of the country went to 1-4.)
news.gallup.com

Movie Theater Attendance Far Below Historical Norms

Three in five Americans say they did not go to a movie theater in the past year, while 31% saw between one and four movies and 9% attended more than that.
news.gallup.com news.gallup.com

Plus, sometimes the point of going out is to spend money. It's like buying a gift for someone -- you don't want it to be free; you want to spend the appropriate amount of money. And going to the movies is still a lot cheaper than many other entertainment venues.

I can't find the source, but Google says that the average American family goes to the movies 3.7 times per year. And the average family with young children goes 4.9 times. That implies that the fertility crisis is taking a bite out of the audience.

But basically the dynamics you describe are the same as traditional TV vs cinema. Why spend a bundle on an outing when you can get all you can watch for a monthly fee from the comfort of home? The only differences are that home theaters have improved and streamers offer on-demand choices. Those are definitely points in the favor of streamers, but the basic dynamic is the same.

Adjusted for inflation, today's average ticket prices are roughly on par with those of 1990. Maybe a little higher. I'm having trouble getting data to compare historical popcorn prices. But the last several times I went to the theaters, they had no problem with me bringing in my own snacks. (And that was ar multiple theaters over a 10-year period because I scarcely go since having kids. Too much hassle.)

But so -- let's take the rest of your numbers from the Los Angeles estimates but say that the family of five is going 5 times per year (2001-2007 average), then its $750/year or 1% of annual income.
 
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We should probably all be putting our money where our mouth is. Go to the movies! Twice a month! See the things you want them to make! And patronize streamers who show real cinema, like Criterion Channel or even Apple TV+
 
It takes more than a few people to sustain an industry, but I *do* think it's important to support the art and artists (and services) you want to see survive. Criterion, MUBI, and a few others are doing what they can to continue keeping movies alive as an art form. I enjoy a big, dumb blockbuster as much as the next person (maybe...) but I want to do whatever I can to make sure Criterion and MUBI (and others) can still offer a home for movies that aren't meant to rake in a billion dollars.
 
Yes. I'm probably way off on some of the specifics.

A lot of it was me thinking out loud on what I have been reading about the cinema vs the streaming world. I really wouldn't expect figures of people going to the cinema to be much greater than the figures you are quoting from your research. The figures you are quoting only go to paint an even bleaker figure for the cinema industry. Fully understand the joys of dragging kids to Micky Dees, (It's called Maccas, down here in Aussie) then the movies. Prior to online and cable, that's what we had to do. No other choices were available if you wanted to see a movie. And isn't that the problem? The movie / cinema industry is up against too much opposition and competition. If you can't compete, you die or downsize, dramatically. Sad.

Chris Young
 
cyvideo said:
Yes. I'm probably way off on some of the specifics.

A lot of it was me thinking out loud on what I have been reading about the cinema vs the streaming world. I really wouldn't expect figures of people going to the cinema to be much greater than the figures you are quoting from your research. The figures you are quoting only go to paint an even bleaker figure for the cinema industry. Fully understand the joys of dragging kids to Micky Dees, (It's called Maccas, down here in Aussie) then the movies. Prior to online and cable, that's what we had to do. No other choices were available if you wanted to see a movie. And isn't that the problem? The movie / cinema industry is up against too much opposition and competition. If you can't compete, you die or downsize, dramatically. Sad.

Chris Young
Click to expand...
I mean, the global box office has recovered to about 75% of its pre-pandemic high (not adjusted for inflation), and I'd say that we haven't had a normal (non-pandemic, non-strike affected) year yet. Things are going better than I had feared.

It's also not a zero sum game of theatrical vs streaming. If theaters died but streamers produced all the same movies anyway, it wouldn't matter much to the crews. Of course, the reality is somewhere in the middle.
 
drboffa said:
I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts on the essay. I know some people here have worked for or with Netflix, as well as with other streamers.
Click to expand...

That essay on streaming-services is one of the freshest pieces of writing I've read in a long time. Thank you for sharing it.
Brutal. Honest. Haunting!

It argues, convincingly, that streaming-platforms mostly serve meaningless-trash to half-asleep phone-gazers. This same topic is explored in a feature-length episode of South Park called South Park The Streaming Wars (2022).

A close viewing of this two-part South Park episode gives a lot of clues about what is currently going on in Hollywood. It's worth remembering that the writer (Trey Parker) has an insider's perspective on the industry.

These two Streaming Wars episodes are extremely crass, but worth experiencing once the allegory is grasped: In these episodes, the water-park represents Hollywood / Disney; the water shortage represents the creative drought; the scene in the cages underneath the 'water park' raises some serious questions about children... and the rest is better experienced allegorically.

In short: There is a growing awareness across the entire industry that high-volume-streaming is not healthy. Nor are the companies that practice it.

Thanks again for linking to that article. Very enlightening!
 
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