THB #338: Must Be Da Data!

I’ve been in a post-Oscar brain fog for about 48 hours. And I really wasn’t doing very much this year. I’ve been restraining what is left of my brain from cherry-picking the endless myopic coverage after the fact, as factually false - not opinion false - takes are being thrown around about why and how a lot of things happened. Boring!!! I will eventually sit down one day and write a newsletter about some of the biggest myths of the moment (not just about awards)… but for the moment, it just hurts my head like Hugh Grant being interviewed by a supermodel whose underwear is showing.

Anyway…

What did strike me today, thanks to a writer who will remain nameless (not Magic Matt), is to give a deeper think about streaming data.

I will put aside the deluded notion that streaming data should be the sword the WGA impales itself upon this summer. It’s not happening. But I am wondering whether it would actually be a good thing for union members if it did happen.

Data is a doubled-edged sword. And let’s remember, more than 50% of all content released, on Streaming, on Linear, in Theaters… wherever… is going to have crap numbers. Is it in the interest of the artists’ unions to try to intimately align data-based results with the future of said artists?

I mean, it already happens… too much. No writer, no director, no actor scores every time. This is a streaky business. And if you hit .250 as a writer/producer, you are a star. If you hit .500 as an actor, not falling into any extended losing streaks, you are a star. If in your entire career as a film director, you have 5 highly successful films, you are a star… and if you are a pilot person and you hit 3 or 4 times, you have been a star, though that may be a zombie stat already.

The pressure we hear on the Free The Data side is from people who have had successes for which they don’t feel like they are getting fully compensated. You aren’t getting it from the flop makers. You aren’t getting it from the wildly overpaid based on previous reputation.

There is no question that the Netflix model, which has not included data transparency, has changed the game. But the lack of transparency isn’t where the major changes have come. Much more significant is how Netflix changed the development process. Then the shorter season buys. Then then end of the ambition to extend a show to its longest possible life.

The issue of data transparency is about shared returns on success… which is a non-issue for Streaming, as there is no direct revenue attributable to any specific show.

The harsh reality is that the outcomes of the shows have become less important under the Netflix subscription-based system.

I used to say Netflix should release more data, but it was only in the pursuit of knowledge and self-indulgence. You know when the “we need data” noise started really growing? When Netflix stopped overpaying for things by so much that agents started really thinking about it.

Netflix doesn’t build a series the way anyone has built a series in the past… not because they have been so innovative, but because they deliver (almost) everything the way movies have always been released more than the way television series are built. (One difference is that they don’t spend on marketing like movies - then and now - do.) But they release The Whole Thing at once and people consume at will. Do they want you to watch every episode or every minute? Of course. Does it really matter to their bottom line? No. How the show relates to a person’s willingness to maintain a subscription is much more important.