Goodbye binge-watching? Netflix could review one of its principles for broadcasting series

Netflix could abandon the concept of offering all episodes of a new season of a series at once. The objective would be to prevent users from unsubscribing too quickly.

Do you remember back in the 90s, when you had to wait every week to watch the new episode of The X-Files? With the arrival of Netflix, this practice has been shattered thanks to binge-watching, or burst viewing for the French translation. Thus, during the new season of a series, Netflix makes the 10 or 13 episodes accessible on the same day, which allows them to be consumed at will. For example, you can watch one a week or swallow the whole season in one weekend. In addition to avoiding waiting between two episodes, this method of consumption makes it possible not to lose the thread of the story and to follow it better if the episodes are not independent.

But Netflix could change policy and do like other market players (Amazon Prime Video, Disney+) by offering only one episode per week. Indeed, the provider would struggle to revive its subscription growth, despite the success of series like Stranger Things. He is reportedly looking for ways to retain his existing subscriber base and stopping binge-watching is under consideration according to our colleagues at CNBC.

Investors are starting to get worried, as Netflix announced in April the loss of 200,000 subscribers worldwide in its first quarter financial report. And the loss could increase to 2 million subscribers for the second quarter. Among the solutions under study, the supplier could offer a cheaper subscription, but with advertising. It could also step up its fight against account sharing, even if it means offering this mode as a paid option.

Seasons divided in two

Last year, delays in the production of series due to the pandemic forced Netflix not to necessarily offer all the episodes at once. For example, the Lupin series with Omar Sy was divided into two parts of five episodes. The first was released on January 8, 2021, but it took until June 11 to see the second. To a lesser extent, this was also the case with the fourth season of Stranger Things. We were able to access seven episodes on May 27, while waiting for the remaining two episodes which will be available on July 1, a delay of about a month.

The advantage of offering only one episode per week is to force users to remain subscribers if they want to see the entire series (10 episodes correspond to a duration of two and a half months). The other advantage is to continue to talk about the series for several weeks, as Disney+ is currently doing with Obi-Wan Kenobi and his character from Star Wars. In short, Netflix could return to a broadcast rate similar to that of traditional television channels. Unless the supplier cuts the pear in half by offering, for example, the first two or three episodes at once to start the broadcast.

Source :

CNBC