Taking out a distracting conversation from the Legion thread.
Here’s one explanation but I think it is already out of date.
Obviously streaming services like Hulu pay either the networks or the studio that produces the show money for the rights to stream them. Streaming services now have shows monitored for viewership as well and no doubt a show streamed more demands a higher fee from the network or production company.
Not all money comes from ads now.
Any StraightDope out there?
Originally posted in the other thread -
As we veer off topic, the point isn’t how popular the show is - it’s how does someone get paid to make it. If there was a way to recoup the costs of production and make a decent profit with just a single viewer - the show would be made for that just that one guy.
But, the reality for the people who make tv is that too few advertisers are willing to pay for you to binge watch (in fact, unless you’re one of the people paying 3.99 or more per episode, you’re not willing to pay for you to binge watch, so why on earth would an advertiser?)
Until we get a change to companies becoming willing to pay for binge watchers or we move to a pay-per-episode, pay-per-season, or pay-per-service model, shows that people will only watch in binges get cancelled because there’s no money to produce the show. In contrast, shows that people will watch every week will tend to continue.
Pointing out that binge-watching contributes to shows getting cancelled isn’t a moral judgment or a value judgment, it’s just pointing out the consequence of an action.
Exactly.
And the “better model” for shows will likely involve pay-to-play. Cable is itself pay-to-play, but I think the next evolution is going to involve being nickel-and-dimed to death so that either:
or
Well obviously Hulu (and others), paid by us, pays for content, and very likely pay more for content that more watch than content that one person watches. More streaming the show, whenever they do, means more who more likely view their service as a must have worth paying for.
In short I do pay to binge watch … and to have access to episodes shows I only decided to watch after they started, like Legion. I pay fees to several services and like many if I had to choose what to let go it would be the cable for TV in real time.
Streaming is pay-to-play. It will be hard for CBS to have something worth enough to pay for as a standalone. It might happen but I doubt it.
Being able to binging old seasons of Breaking Bad as the buzz caught hold brought people into viewing Netflix as valuable enough to pay for. Knowing it was highly viewed as a streamed show the owners of the property could theoretically charge Netflix more. (Not sure if they did; don’t know.) The metrics increasingly exist to follow that viewership with accuracy. I now have Netflix just as much to watch their Marvel shows as streaming movies and am looking forward to Amazon’s The Tick. More of the new shows that appeal to me have been original to the streamers in fact. (Although far from all.)
I thought about putting this in GQ as a question: how much do the streamers pay the networks and the studios for various shows? Not sure if the answer is knowable.
And then there is the harder to measure. Take viewers like me. I did not start off watching Legion, busy. But when I had a block to watch something I noted that the show sounded interesting and the first posts in the thread here intrigued me so I binged on Hulu to catch up as far as Hulu went, OnDemanded the last one, and am now up to date likely to watch via DVR within a day or two all new broadcasts. If streaming was not an option I never would have started the show … a show like that you do not start at episode 6. Viewers like me are added to the ad exposed numbers because of streaming.
Also:
Ratings aren’t about popularity, they’re about counting how many people watched. They are not a DUMB system for that purpose.
Imagine you just spent $100 million producing a tentpole movie for your movie studio. Movies live or die on opening day, so you need to get butts in seats this weekend or your entire studio might begin a death spiral.
In this hypothetical scenario, do you care at all that special snowflakes will be watching Show X in four months during a binge weekend? No, of course not. You care about reaching people this week, and will pay tons of money to make that happen.
You are still defending a dead system. Things no longer work that way because binge watching is a superior option for the viewer. The fact that it disturbs the current way providers monetize their product is a problem for the them to solve, not for the viewer to inconvenience themselves to accommodate. The moment TiVo became a thing was a signal for providers to start moving to a new system, companies like Hulu and Netflix will flourish while others cancel good shows because viewers are not behaving the way they want them. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, any network relying on “live viewers” is simply doing it wrong.
An interesting bit to throw into the mix here - how much does Hulu pay to be able to stream South Park? $192 million for 5 years of streaming.
Another bit to throw in. Advertising revenue is important but it’s not king for the studios. Affiliate and retransmission fees are.
For Disney media for example the narrow majority of revenue comes from affiliate fees and only 37% from advertising.