Netflix is Going Through Puberty
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You know how pre-teens suddenly start smelling like onions and their teeth get too big for their weird heads? That’s probably how Netflix is starting to feel. It’s in a bit of an awkward phase right now as it tries to figure out how to mature and compete alongside Hollywood power players like Disney and WarnerMedia. According to The Information, one way it’s doing this is by suddenly caring about budgets. Chief content officer Ted Sarandos reportedly told execs that future big-budget projects should guarantee lots of viewers. It’s also dipping its toe into a handful of traditional Hollywood giant behaviors, including potentially linking producer compensation with film success and requesting pilots for a handful of unscripted projects. It reportedly did this with Vox on a show that Netflix ultimately chose to not go forward with.
Speaking of Netflix and its gangly limbs, the New York Times had an interesting article about its “talk show problem” earlier this week. The streamer has had a number of talk shows greenlit and then promptly canceled over the last two years: The Break with Michelle Wolf, The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHaleand, its first, Chelsea. It currently has a couple of survivors on air: Norm Macdonald Has a Show and The Fix, which haven’t done very well (The Fix is excellent btw), and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj and My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, which are thriving. Comedian in Cars Getting Coffee, which it bought the rights to from Sony’s streaming service Crackle, is also hanging in there.
“You’re watching every human being changing how they watch TV,” Brandon Riegg, Netflix’s VP of nonfiction series and comedy specials, said. “It happened really fast. With time, I think these shows will succeed.”
The shows that are doing well are based on interviews and broad topics rather than daily headlines, which is what drives a lot of the fodder in late night staples like The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon or The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But if we’ve learned anything from shows like Patriot Act or even HBO’s Last Week Tonight (which is insanely popular on YouTube following HBO broadcasts), it’s that consumers are happy to watch a talk show on their favorite streaming service. We just need a format that works for them.
