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The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

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Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#51

Post by startupfounder »

I just finished watching the 13 episodes of House of Cards season one this weekend and my very good friend is in acquisitions for a major network.

House of Cards is phenomenal, period.

"We believe that February 1st will be a defining moment in the development of Internet TV...The constraints of the linear TV grid will fall, one by one." - Page 5-6 Letter to shareholders http://goo.gl/VBGv6

Look beyond the short term $100M price tag for this one show, this is a shift in power. Netflix is building an old stone house...

“Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power is the old stone house that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone who doesn’t see the difference.” - Francis Underwood on House of Cards

Netflix is becoming truly vertically integrated.

Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#52

Post by rquantz »

jseliger wrote: post #31
geuis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, television as a book. I get the analogy. It's kind of like applying book serialization to video. You quickly read a book and as many sequels exist when you first pick it up. Then you have to wait for the next season, i.e. book, to come out.

I get the analogy and see the value in it, but I'll point out where the TV isn't like a book: 1. Books are obviously composed of text, and, when you read, you're also imbibing the rhythms of the language you're reading (see http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071... for more on this). 2. Related to number one, many more of us need to write than need to shoot and edit videos. Reading skill is rela…

Also, the cost of entry for creating a high quality book is much lower than for creating a high quality movie/tv show. This allows a wider variety of viewpoints, forms, styles, and ideas to be expressed in book form than tv.

Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#53

Post by stcredzero »

alaskamiller wrote: post #38
jseliger wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the analogy and see the value in it, but I'll point out where the TV isn't like a book: 1. Books are obviously composed of text, and, when you read, you're also imbibing the rhythms of the language you're reading (see http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071... for more on this). 2. Related to number one, many more of us need to write than need to shoot and edit videos. Reading skill is rela…

I'll defend. 1. House of Cards was 13 "chapters" that have definite rhythm and flow. Every hour was a mini three act play and it would make sense considering at the end of the day, video is just scripts brought to life by an accomplished playwright, accomplished director, accomplished talent, and accomplished cast. 2. We don't live in that world anymore. We're a civilization on an escalating need for input stimulatio…

> And the impact of a well crafted moment in a show, I posit, is much more powerful sometimes than a page can deliver.

Depends on the writer. I've been haunted by single lines in novels for years.

> Surf Tumblr for a few hours and you'll understand how things are done these days. Kids don't just share quotes anymore, kids share GIF screen caps of their favorite moments in the movie or show they like.

In David Brin's uplift series, he posited that the "uplifted" sentient dolphins would mimic echolocation signals to beam images and short imagined movies directly into each other's heads. It's like we're becoming David Brin's dolphins. Someday, our tools will be so powerful and the interfaces so slick and efficient, we will just instantly produce little movies and beam them into each other's brains. We've already seen the effect of video on speech and syntax: "It was like..."

Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#56

Post by jlgreco »

jseliger wrote: post #35
geuis wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of political shows. That said, I decided to watch House of Cards last night. It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. There's a good cast of supporting actors too. The writing is a bit mundane, but not terrible. I know the show is somewhat of a remake of a BBC show from a while back, but I never watched it so my take is purely on this experience. I plan on watching the rest of it. It was i…

>It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. There's a good cast of supporting actors too. The writing is a bit mundane, but not terrible. This is a tangent, but HBO and Showtime appear to have noticed that there's a deep pool of talent actors with skills equal to famous, expensive actors. The cable networks realized that these lesser-known but very good actors can be hired to create very compelling shows…

I might be inclined to agree, but to be honest what made me give the show a shot is when I learned that Spacey was in it. Perhaps they won't need to continue to get big name actors though, now that people understand the sort of scale/budget they are operating at.

Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#58

Post by bambax »

geuis wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of political shows. That said, I decided to watch House of Cards last night. It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. There's a good cast of supporting actors too. The writing is a bit mundane, but not terrible. I know the show is somewhat of a remake of a BBC show from a while back, but I never watched it so my take is purely on this experience. I plan on watching the rest of it. It was i…

I watched the first 4 episodes of HoC this weekend and am quite disappointed.

Production is very good, acting is quite good (although Spacey simply plays "high status" all the time with a rigid upper lip and not much nuance).

For me there are two problems

- The two main characters are cynical people who are obsessed with power and just plain mean... and they win every time. I don't care for them; at this point I would like to watch them fail and be humiliated, but I don't think it will happen, so I lost the main incentive to watch the next episode.

- The whole thing is predictable. At the beginning of each episode a minor setback appears for the Underwoods, and they defeat it with a smirk (Robin Wright's smirk really gets on my nerves now, although she's probably one of the most beautiful women in the world).

- - -

On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(U.S._TV_series) a critic is quoted saying "This hardwired venality is what makes this show so watchable. Here are the realities of political life as most of us suspect them to be."

I'm not sure. I think HoC takes itself and its subject much too seriously. I think reality is much more absurd and difficult to control, as described in Armando Iannucci's writing, which I can never get enough of (The Thick of It, In the Loop, Veep, etc.)

- - -

EDIT -- The rant above is a little off-topic; the on-topic point is that this is a very good move for Netflix and that (as others have noted) they really don't have a choice.

If they don't produce their own exclusive content they are at the mercy of other content producers who will try to price them out of the market (and would succeed in doing so).

Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#59

Post by louthy »

I signed up because of House of Cards, so I guess that's one account closer to their target ;)

I really enjoyed the series, I expected to be disappointed because most US remakes of UK shows are abysmal - and the original is a stone cold classic, but I thought it was stunning and really enjoyed Spacey's FU 2.0.

Re: The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million Show

#60

Post by quaunaut »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #45
geuis wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of political shows. That said, I decided to watch House of Cards last night. It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. There's a good cast of supporting actors too. The writing is a bit mundane, but not terrible. I know the show is somewhat of a remake of a BBC show from a while back, but I never watched it so my take is purely on this experience. I plan on watching the rest of it. It was i…

> It's not bad. Having Kevin Spacey as the lead is good. I like the show, but Kevin Spacey's southern accent is so terrible it is distracting. I normally wouldn't care, but my I grew up in the Carolinas and he sounds nothing like any person or politician from the area. He needs to drop the accent as it takes away from the rest of his performance. If they wanted a correct southern accent they should have hired Kyle Ch…

There's a lot more than one southern accent. Someone from the Carolinas sounds wholly different from Floridian which sounds different from Texan which sounds different from Oklahoma which sounds different from Louisiana and I think you're getting the picture. I've heard more than one person with that accent of his.
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