How Will We Know If House of Cards Was a Hit?

http://www.vulture.com/2013/01/netflix-house-of-cards-was-it-a-hit.html

by amalag • 13 years ago

35 56 13 years ago

vulture.com

evan_• 13 years ago

We'll have to watch it, and decide for ourselves whether it was good or not!

hayksaakian• 13 years ago

Watch the money. If there's a season 2, it was a hit.

jacques_chester• 13 years ago

The original material went on to three novels and three series in the UK.

Though it might be hard to translate To Play the King into an American context.

alaskamiller2• 13 years ago

They already bought 2 seasons.

corin_12• 13 years ago

> FX chief John Landgraf [...] "How will you determine if something's a hit?"

The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not?

> Remember, with a subscription costing about $100 a year, adding 10 million subscribers over the next few years would bring in an addition $1 billion to Netflix's coffers.

Am I missing something, or is this the most irrelevant sentence ever written in journalistic context? Genuine question. (Not to mention the fact that it seems to mix annual subscriptions to a one-off bank-balance boost?)

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not?

If they can prove it was a hit, that's good marketing material.

alaskamiller2• 13 years ago

Would be classier if they don't, great speaks for itself. But I don't doubt they would share the numbers when they re-pitch every top tier Hollywood talent.

jonursenbach• 13 years ago

It also encourages other streaming companies to follow suit with more original content.

corin_12• 13 years ago

How is Netflix not using something for marketing purposes a problem for us or for FX?

Sure, there's arguments for releasing it, but I don't see any arguments for that "but it's my right to know!" feeling.

gwern2• 13 years ago

Investors might want to know. Consider the social utility of not propping up (via ignorance & secrecy) the stock price on a company that is cratering.

corin_12• 13 years ago

Yeah they might, but since when have companies given out every single aspect of their private information just to appease investors?

lazerwalker• 13 years ago

> The real question is why does anybody outside of Netflix need to know whether it's a hit or not?

If you're in the media journalism industry (as, say, a writer at Vulture), of course you want to know whether it's a hit or not. Ratings numbers are the perfect excuse to write weekly opinion pieces about how Netflix is doomed/thriving to drum up pageviews.

corin_12• 13 years ago

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my question - actually no, I was: why does anyone need to know, not want to know. Like in my two examples about why FX and I might want to know, journalists might also want to know, and again there's plenty of things they want to know without having a right to know.

dfc6• 13 years ago

"Am I missing something, or is this the most irrelevant sentence ever written in journalistic context? Genuine question."

Really? I cannot believe that is a genuine question. You actually think that there is more than a 1 in 1,000 (or 1 in 10, you pick the odds) chance of that being the most irrelevant sentence ever written?

corin_12• 13 years ago

I was clearly being somewhat hyperbolic, my "genuine question" was assigned to "Am I missing something", as in that wasn't rhetorical, I really want to know if that sentence is as stupid as I think it is. (And even within my hyperbole, you missed my "in journalistic context"!)

_dark_matter_2• 13 years ago

Dear Jesus, another House of Cards post?

geuis• 13 years ago

I hear where you're coming from. It can seem annoying. But look at it as a coal mine canary. If no one was interested in the show, no one would talk about it.

What multiple postings show has less to do with which show Netflix produces, but rather that Netflix is making its own show(s).

We live in the transitional period of high price, high production content mainly being distributed via traditional means and lower quality content being produced by independents on places like YouTube and distributed independently.

Netflix is one of the first major companies that bases it's business on Internet distribution rather than cable. That company is now making high production, high price content and distributing that online. People are interested to see how this experiment will pan out, thus generating things like multiple postings about House of Cards.

_dark_matter_2• 13 years ago

Extremely valid points. I was in no way demeaning the value of the experiment, or of the show itself; it was just my initial reaction to seeing the post.

Anytime a company decides to shakeup the establishment (in this case, cable and pay-per-view), it is extremely interesting to the community as a whole.

Gormo• 13 years ago

On the other hand, there have been at least three posts relating to Stoicism on the front page today. Fortunately, both topics are interesting.

troymc2• 13 years ago

While Netflix may not release viewer numbers, there are plenty of other ways to tell if HoC is a "hit." How often is it mentioned in blogs, forums, Facebook, newspapers, Twitter, magazines, podcasts, etc.? Do fan groups, forums, and meetups emerge? Is there fan fiction? Does Netflix pursue merchandising, book versions, a video game, or a feature film?

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

It's almost like Google built a tool that tracks exactly that sort of thing!

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=house%20of%20cards

Don't worry, I forgot about it too until just now.

troymc2• 13 years ago

Yep, that's another one (number of Google searches for 'house of cards').

duaneb4• 13 years ago

Television would probably be far better without ratings. Just imagine if CNN didn't need to worry about viewers: they could actually report news instead of providing entertainment.

eob• 13 years ago

This is an interesting statement to think about. At first, I nod in agreement. Upon second thought, I realize that it points right at the age-old debate about what makes art "art".

Is good art that which sells, or is good art that which connoisseurs find taste in?

Perhaps the only reasonable response is to admit that there is value in both definitions, and it would be a good thing if the television market allowed for both approaches to flourish.

That said, even if public investors aren't provided viewership numbers, you can sure bet Netflix is paying attention internally. So this is probably just a more private version of the same old ratings game.

duaneb4• 13 years ago

Well, I think ratings will always be useful—not all new shows are good, and ratings help weed the failures from the successes. I just hope for a future where ratings don't dictate income, as they currently do via advertisements. Netflix doesn't have this problem because they aren't beholden to advertisers. I hope they get The News Hour or something soon, I would watch the fuck out of it.

corin_12• 13 years ago

News is not art. Or more accurately, art is not news. Sure, there's value in many things on the spectrum from trashy celebrity gossip to ground-breaking scientific reporting to reality television and music videos and much more - not all of it is news.

In art, wine, whisky, software, many areas it's fine to argue whether quality or popularity is king ($20 blended vs. 30yo single malt, beautiful code vs. news.arc), but not in news. There's good news and there's crappy news, and sadly it seems crappy news is the more popular, but that doesn't mean it's better.

It may generally be a snobby view to take, but I think I'm reasonably unbiased in that I light trashy celebrity gossip and shit entertainment forms as much as anyone.

Side note: Sorkin's The Newsroom tackles the debate of quality vs. ratings when it comes to televised news. It's an absolutely fantastic show (at least it is if, like me, you share the creator's left-leaning politics, I've no idea if people with differing views would necessarily enjoy it as much as I do.)

prostoalex• 13 years ago

Sort of like PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer?

duaneb4• 13 years ago

My favorite news program! Wish it were on netflix so I could watch it on my TV.

niggler2• 13 years ago

"they could actually report news instead of providing entertainment."

For one hour a day, the major broadcast networks are required to report news.

philwelch2• 13 years ago

It's hard to construct a working business model where programming isn't funded according to its popularity.

circa• 13 years ago

Of course it's a hit. Who doesn't like radiohead?

fsckin• 13 years ago

One could argue by their logic that Lilyhammer (the first original Netflix content) was a hit, now that House of Cards is out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilyhammer

amalag• 13 years ago

I am surprised noone else is mentioning that series as the first original content. I was so bad I couldn't watch the first episode.

27182818284• 13 years ago

We'll know it is a hit more than any other show newly released show, right?

I mean Netflix could actually sort out the viewing habits and see who gave it a try and then stopped, and who ended up hooked and watched five episodes the same afternoon they watched it for the first time.

That's super powerful in my opinion.

philwelch2• 13 years ago

Indeed. They have the 21st century equivalent of Nielsen ratings.

interurban• 13 years ago

The point is that Netflix will, but unlike traditional broadcast and cable, we won't. Unless I'm mistaken, Netflix isn't included in any sort of ratings, the main source of our information about television viewership.

Netflix will indeed have some of the most powerful analytic tools available to apply to their programming, but we have no way of independent verification. Well, I suppose they may break it down in a quarterly report, but they may not have any reason to.

I think lots of people are interested in the viability of this model. Television format entertainment hasn't been significantly "disrupted" by the internet yet and this could be a step in a new direction, but it'll be hard to tell without Netflix releasing their numbers.

edouard1234567• 13 years ago

netflix has a row with popular shows called "popular on netflix", if it shows up in the row it's a hit on netflix.

Aron• 13 years ago

I think there are a variety of external measures. The # of likes on the show, the critic reception, the avg rating on Netflix, the google trends for 'House of Cards' (close to 'game of thrones' last I looked).. probably twitter activity. Could probably get a decent model out of all that.

How Will We Know If House of Cards Was a Hit?

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