Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ have experienced tremendous success over the past few years in terms of content creation and subscription growth. However, the content binge model that these platforms are based on is proving to be more and more unsustainable as time goes on. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many streaming platforms reached their peak, thanks to consumers’ general increase in free time and disposable income as a result of not spending as much money on travel, restaurants or other forms of entertainment. Yet as 2022 begins, these same streaming services are now facing issues brought upon market saturation and immense costs associated with the ongoing content war, fueled by streaming platforms vying to be the top service. While bingeable content started as a unique concept for Netflix, the cost of keeping up with continuous new content is especially proving to be a lot for producers.
Without a doubt, it is convenient to have access to a whole season of your favorite TV show, especially after waiting a whole year for it. Consumers have the freedom to watch as many episodes of their favorite TV series as they want without any time constraints. Watching several episodes from one season at a time allows for a seamless experience for the viewer, aided by the convenient autoplay option, “skip intro” button and lack of ads. While on the consumer side, binge-watching a series is obviously appealing, this naturally creates an ongoing demand for more content as soon as the newest release is dropped. As a result, streaming services are spending billions of dollars each year to keep up with the demand, but quantity does not equal quality. In 2019 alone, Netflix ended up releasing more original series and films than the entire U.S. TV industry did in 2005. Despite all that new content, only a handful can be remembered as significant just three years later.
With so much money going into continuously producing new content, it is notable how there is minimal, if any, actual promotion of films and series that star some of the biggest actors in Hollywood. The Netflix film “Red Notice,” starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, broke records as the most-watched film in Netflix’s history. Yet despite the 328.8 million viewing hours this $200 million production garnered, most of the marketing done for original content is only done within Netflix itself. Part of the reason is that streaming platforms’ main goals in terms of marketing are to get consumers to subscribe to their service. Rather than spending money on promoting individual films, that budget is allocated toward convincing viewers to commit to a monthly subscription for the entire service. Once a consumer subscribes to the service, the home page promotes the newest and most popular releases.
With little promotion leading up to the release of traditionally impressive content, the buzz around such drop is more prone to fade quickly. While it typically takes one to four months to film a movie, and not to mention up to millions of dollars, once it is released on a streaming platform, the buzz around it lasts a few weeks at best. Compared to a movie theater, where a film is played for several weeks, a streaming service makes the film accessible to anyone at any point in time. This means that people are able to consume content much faster, and the attention given to the production is less concentrated within a certain time period. Given the cycle of continuous new content releases with substantially less marketing than traditional movies, demand for new content will only continue to rise.
The traditional model of releasing an episode per week instead of dropping an entire season is a much more sustainable solution for binge culture. While waiting a whole week for an episode to air may now seem unfathomably long, it allows viewers to fully commit to a particular series for a longer period of time, making the series and storyline more impactful. It also provides something to look forward to during the week, acting as an event that one devotes time to. Not only does this combat the problem of spending several hours binge-watching a single series in one day, but it allows all those involved in producing the content to see how viewers react to their work over a longer period of time, which is more satisfying given the time taken to produce the content. Steaming platforms are already taking notice of the benefits associated with a weekly episode release model, with some services dropping one to three episodes per week as opposed to an entire season. Just a couple of the shows following this model are Amazon Prime’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” HBO Max’s “Euphoria” and Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.” Considering the costs and time associated with producing any type of media content, it is more worthwhile to take the weekly release approach in order for producers to sustain their businesses and for consumers to get the most out of the viewing experience.
Sana Malik is a senior double-majoring in biology and philosophy, politics and law.