We seem to get rather fickle on what we see on the big screen and the small screen. We are pushed from event to event by marketing trying to create the new hype, from makers hoping for us to indulge in a new taste of Tinsel and we are letting it happen, we are giving in. We give in too often and we give in to readily. Yet the danger is that in that stream we lose sight of the good stuff, we lose sight of what could be awesome.
I am not debating whether a series is good or not, it tends to be set to individual tastes, but marketing does not allow for individual taste, it requires clusters, because it is cheaper to tailor to a group. The problem is that it works too well. To give this a spin, lets look at data
In a normal setting we see
Good ratings – 23
Average ratings – 37
Low ratings – 31
No ratings – 9
Total – 100
Now consider that marketing sets the stage for people to only see the top 25 percent, in this setting we see that those with good ratings does not cover the 25%, so some over the average series drip in. But marketing hands to us that those with no rating do not count and now we get a different setting through what some call user missing values.
Good ratings – 23 (25%)
Average ratings – 37 (40%)
Low ratings – 31 (33%)
Total – 91
No ratings – 9
End Total – 100
23 out of 91 is now 25% and as such the threshold is made and ALL the average series are disregarded by the marketing department as as such they fall from your view too. The truth is a little more complex than that, but the setting fits. The problem is that YOU did not vote, 100 people voted in this case. But is that not based on THEIR personal preferences? This is in part the problem with clusters and statistics. Statistics have their purpose, I believe in them, yet if we do not see the danger they pose we will be marginalised into the outliers we are so eager to avoid.
To see what we might love, we need to see a lot more than we are given and the cluster marketeers are eager to avoid that setting, they represent THEIR client and what that client is bringing and it is now, in the era of Covid that some realise that we are given to shallow a choice, it is the setting of time and the setting of available time that made us look around and now that we see more we wonder what we are missing out on. I personally had reservations when the Name of the Rose was redone a a series, but when I found out it was an amazing journey I took it in. A series largely avoided by too many for all kinds of reasons, but who of you saw The name of the Rose with John Turturro, Rupert Everett, Damian Hardung, Stefano Fresi and others? Explortion is the one thing that tinseltown marketing fears, it disrupts their clusters and changes the way we see series. We are already changing this through Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime and others, the setting that we pay monthly and get all they offer is a setting that marketing is not completely ready for, but in the era of Covid the setting alters even more, now the entire field is seen and it worries the marketing departments in entertainment, we have too much free time and still that same monthly budget. These departments now fear the power of Churning, especially Netflix and Disney Plus are empowered by churners and the field will get larger. Soon there will be a new players that offers both for a nice price and that is when the field changes even more. Channel Plus and Foxtel faced that stage around 1999-2003 and now we see the first settings where Netflix and Disney Plus might face it soon enough too. In this, I expect that statistics will play a larger impact here. It is nice to see these two players throwing billions a year, but the numbers do not support that stage and a setting where they can work on a 60%-80% budget and share the members is preferred to the stage of losing them. There is still Apple, HBO and a few others. And this is their fear, they claim it is not, but the numbers are out there, because if the others unite the idea of getting 5-7 channels for one fee will overwhelm them and it will cost them over time a lot more, all whilst they still fight each other with new and more exciting IP, IP I equalled in a mere two months as I had some free time.
As I see it the numbers are working for me and even when that population becomes a whole lot bigger, so will the outliers in the data. I reckon that we will see a first stage in 2023, when 5G becomes a much larger stage and if covid goes on the way it does a change in 2022 is not out of the question.
You can wonder all you want, or you can wait to see what happens next. In this stage that will work in your favour. In September we were given “Netflix is expected to boost content spending on an amortised basis by a healthy 26% in 2021 to $13.6 billion — and the streamer’s budget could hit $18.9 billion by 2025, as it increasingly shifts the mix toward originals”, now consider that globally, Netflix had in Q3 2021 213,500,000 members. How long do you think this spending continues all whilst churners are now becoming a much larger stage for concern? At $10 a month (and not for the 4K option) we see a monthly stage that goes around $2B a month, so 6-7 months for the spending and we forgot about infrastructure, under those spendings Netflix has a near balanced stage, a stage that goes wrong they get more than one series wrong as a hit. And there is every chance that 2022 will get more people to the cinema, covid might have stopped us, yet we never forgot about the big screen Tom Holland showed that much with his $1B plus view on the new Spiderman and more is coming. Netflix and Disney Plus are in a dangerous stage. Disney might have reserves but when you spend well over $10,000,000,000 there will be hardship and when you add it all together we see that the numbers cannot continue as they are at present, I hope you see that too and when the clustering marketing efforts fall away, when the view digresses to the stage that becomes smaller as time is no longer a luxury we once had, the stage will take another turn, at that point we all wonder what comes next. We wonder what will happen, we all do and that is fine, but in that stage Netflix (Disney too) will need to alter the game they are playing at present. I see no other option for them the game they play now will prove to be too expensive for several players in that game.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 