addictive watch:The Netflix study reveals the episode where most Indian viewers got hooked to that particular show.— photos: special arrangement
On a Saturday afternoon in July, exasperated by the incessant Mumbai rains, a couple of friends and I decided to watch the first episode of a new Netflix series. It was not yet the biggest television phenomenon of the summer; we were still about a week away from the endless articles, Reddit dissections, and Easter-egg hunts that the series would spawn.
At about 2.30 p.m, thankfully without the burden of insurmountable expectations, we started watching Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers . By the time we switched off the laptop that evening, we had watched the entire series. It was 10.30 p.m.
Stranger Things had consumed an entire afternoon and evening; we had watched eight nearly hour-long episodes back-to-back.
The decisive moment
For Netflix, forever keen to encourage binge-watching and famous for its relentless behind-the-scenes data-mining and genre-slicing, we would have made for a great case study. In fact, a new study released on Tuesday by Netflix aims to reveal when viewers like us get hooked onto a TV show.
Dubbed Hooked Campaign 2.0 — a continuation of their original Hooked study published last year — the new study offers fresh data to show that just as in real life, getting hooked on a TV show is rarely love at first sight, but an outcome of “getting your feet wet and going all-in at pivotal moments.”
Based on user data collected across multiple countries, Netflix can measure, on an average, which episode got viewers hooked to a certain show, measured as the episode after which at least 70 per cent of its viewers go on to finish the season. Crucially, unlike last year, this year Netflix has data for Indian viewers as well.
The data in the study was pulled from Netflix member accounts who started watching season one of the selected series from January 2015 to August 2016 for Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Sweden, UK and US and January 2016 to August 2016 for Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, South Africa and UAE.
India in the mix
The results are mixed. There are slight variations in when Indian users got hooked compared to the global averages. For instance, Indians got hooked an episode earlier for shows like Narcos and Marvel’s Daredevil.
While Sci-Fi is the most-watched genre in India, Indians seem to prefer the same shows that are loved globally: Master of None , Narcos , Marvel’s Daredevil and Marvel’s Jessica Jones .
Interestingly, cultural differences seem to have little role to play in determining the popularity of TV shows globally. Narcos , a big production, is almost 75 per cent in Spanish, while Making a Murderer is a legal docu-series about a murder in a small Wisconsin town almost no one has heard of. Both ranked among the top 10 most-viewed content in nearly all of Netflix’s markets.
The study also reveals that the hooked episode for India typically comes earlier in series that are more visceral and genre-driven, where the viewer has an emotional reaction to the story being told.
On the other end, for character-driven dramas, viewers take time to discover and befriend characters and learn about the narrative “just as you may take time to choose friends in real life”.
For example, Indians were hooked earlier in Narcos (episode 2 vs. episode 3), whereas in a character-driven series like Gilmore Girls , Indians tend to be hooked later than the global average (episode 8 vs. episode 7).
Binge-watching
But how much time do people spend on Netflix anyway?
Netflix says that when members are focused on finishing a TV series, they watch a little over two hours a day to complete a season.
More interestingly, Indian users are more likely to devour series overall and also to devour series at a faster pace: in three days vs. the global average of four days.
These numbers are an exercise in proving that Netflix’s beliefs are sound. It seems that viewing behaviour, and fandom, are indeed becoming increasingly universal.
Moreover, regardless of whether they live in Argentina or Australia, Singapore or Sweden, it appears Netflix viewers are not only getting hooked on similar episodes, but identifying with similar storylines.
Love at first sight not
The second, somewhat surprising, insight Netflix has uncovered is that no one was ever hooked after the first episode. This lends further credence to Netflix’s insistence that excessive reliance on television pilots is toxic and puts too much unfounded pressure on talented writers who would prefer to develop their story over a longer arc.
Ultimately, these findings are convenient for Netflix as it moves ahead in its battle for business model superiority with television networks and the entrenched ad-based revenue model.
For the streaming service, letting the consumers control their viewing appears to be the smart thing to do. After all, watching an entire season on demand is probably the best way to create fans as opposed to forcing them to tune in at a particular time only to watch commercial-infested runs of their favourite TV shows.