Netflix vs. Niche: Which Platform Is Right for Your Indie Film?
When you’re a small, independent filmmaker, getting picked up by a major streaming outlet like Netflix can feel like a dream come true. The chance to distribute your film to millions of people and reap substantial profits can be too tempting to turn down. But with more niche streaming platforms sprouting up every year, catering to audiences and genres, is Netflix the right solution for every indie flick? Let’s explore the advantages and disadvantages of the big service and the competition.
Netflix: The Streaming Behemoth
Pros:
Total Reach: With a base of more than 238.5 million subscribers to Netflix’s streaming videos around the world as of Q1 2024, you have a solid chance of being seen by millions, or even billions, of people around the earth.
Financial Muscle: Netflix has deep pockets and can feather each title with big licensing fees, production budgets and marketing support.
Brand Recognition: There’s a certain cache to binge watchability and the Netflix brand, which can translate into a greater flow of eyeballs and viewers. Jenae Spies, a film researcher at Clemson University, notes that while access to new technologies can benefit non-mainstream film-makers, it also comes with its drawbacks. Besides technical challenges, production behavior has changed for the worse. From the advent of silent cinema to the end of the golden age of Hollywood, there was a notable ‘vertical integration’ — the actor/writer/directors who produced their own films had a level of artistic control that we are currently lacking. Nowadays, everything is fragmented and in the hands of various experts, which leads to the proliferation of fads and fleeting crazes.
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Cons:
Vicious Competition: With over 10,000 titles currently in its library, is your your film really going to get noticed?
Survival of the Fittest: You’re hardly alone in the effort of gaining any traction and, especially unless you have a whale of a budget for all-star marketing and PR.
Algorithm-Driven Discovery: A movie recommended by Netflix’s algorithm has a much better chance of reaching particular niche Netflix viewers than one that doesn’t. If your film doesn’t fall into an existing popular niche, trend or genre, it might languish out of sight.
Creative Control at Netflix is Limited By Netflix: Netflix may restrict you on content approval, marketing and release strategy, and co-branding.
Niche Streaming Platforms: The Underdogs
Pros:
Narrower audience: Niche sites cater to certain cultural tastes (horror, documentaries, LGBTQ+ cinema) Sites like these work by making sure your movie or series finds its way to viewers who are most likely to be interested in your genre and/or subject matter.
Smaller Libraries: More curated sites generally have smaller libraries, which helps your film become more visible and findable for viewers.
Community-building: Many of the specialty platforms encourage their subscribers to build a community, developing a devoted fan base that interacts with the content.
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Cons:
Smaller audience: niche platforms have a minuscule fraction of the subscribers Netflix enjoys, and there’s no guarantee they’ll carry your film.
Low Licensing Fees: The monetary rewards might not be as grand as those offered by Netflix.
Less Marketing Clout: Although some niche platforms have marketing budgets as large as iTunes, smaller ones might leave you looking elsewhere for some publicity.
Choosing the Right Path
Whether you choose Netflix or a niche platform turns on a number of considerations, including the genre of your film, the audience you are trying to reach, and your goals. Here are a few things to help you decide:
Genre: Does your film align with a targeted category or niche (eg, horror, LGBTQ+ cinema)? If so, a niche platform may be better to spotlight your film and cater it to its specific target audience.
Target audience: Who is the work for? What kind of viewer — mainstream commercial, media-savvy and genre-aware, arthouse frequenters, or film fans of a specific sub genre or microgenre?
Goals? Be it money, mass exposure or validation from a targeted community of artists, your goals should line up with a platform’s strengths.
Specific Examples:
Netflix Cameo: Alfonso Cuarón’s black-and-white Mexican drama Roma (2018) will go down in history as one of the service’s most celebrated movies, but only thanks to a whirlwind of glowing reviews and awards attention, largely bought by a massive Oscar-season marketing blitz.
Niche Platform Success: The Australian horror movie The Babadook (2014) built a fan base on the niche horror-fan platform Shudder, and then was distributed elsewhere, garnering critical acclaim.
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Conclusion
And there’s no one-size-fits-all best answer for whether a given indie film is better suited to distribution on a hipster platform, a niche platform, a mainstream platform or a combination. Instead, take the qualities of your film, your desired audience and where you want to ultimately end up, and weigh the pros and cons of each option. Sometimes, a hybrid might be the answer, with a distribution deal for a small theatrical or festival run, followed by a niche deal that gets the film on a platform, and then broader release on the major platforms.
But remember, it’s all about finding the right platform that best compliments your film’s distinct features to empower your finished film’s reach to an audience where it can have the most impact and resonance to realize that film’s creative and commercial potential.
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