Blog: tv shows

Humans have been telling stories since they first looked at the sky and decided that clusters of stars resembled scorpions and centaurs. Storytelling is intrinsic to culture. It builds relationships, religions, national identities, and hope in dark times.

The finale of House of the Dragon aired this Sunday (or Monday, for countries to the east of the US), culminating a wildly successful first season of HBO’s first Game of Thrones spinoff. To be specific; the official version aired Sunday / Monday in 4K.

Digital-first life has broken down cultural borders, allowing content and fans from all over the world to spread far and wide on both a niche and mainstream level. It is now possible for small independent artists to have substantial yet geographically disparate global fanbases, and for mainstream artists with global name recognition to have only small cores of dedicated fans.

Netflix and Spotify have just launched a collaborative project: a page on the Spotify app that is dedicated to soundtracks and playlists based on popular Netflix shows and films. The implications point to the growth of a trend so natural it seems obvious: fans want to incorporate elements of their favourite shows into other aspects of their lives.

From George Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead to the more recent Walking Dead, to even Game of Thrones’ whitewalkers, zombies have been a cultural zeitgeist metaphorically teasing at our inner fears about humanity at large for decades.

In the digital era, anything can generate metrics – to the point where no matter how good the numbers look, actual success can sometimes be unconnected. Logged ‘views’ of an advertisement don’t hold up to scrutiny when 29% of consumers “normally stop paying attention” when ads come on during a TV show, 31% “usually skip video ads online” and 11% block online ads on their desktop and/or laptop (source: MIDiA Research Main Consumer Survey Q1 2019).

Looking at streaming numbers against total viewership and brand awareness reveals some stark differences between streaming and traditional pay-TV. The fact that a TV show can now be in the top five most streamed of the quarter, and simultaneously not even reach the top 100 in terms of brand awareness, highlights two key trends: Niche is the new mainstream: Fandom is fragmenting.

Streaming video on demand (SVOD) giant Netflix is famous for cultivating the binge-watch phenomenon, fuelled by the popularity of its originals. In the pre-streaming era, people were dependent on traditional scheduled TV for engaging with TV shows.

When an irresistible force comes along there are two options: either get out of the way, or go with the flow. Charter Communications, the third largest US traditional pay-TV operator, has decided to do just that by buying for its Spectrum cable service the exclusive rights to Sony Pictures production LA’s Finest – a project brought to fruition by actor and producer Gabrielle Union.

Warner Bro’s long awaited DC Universe subscription video on demand (SVOD) service is nearing its grand unveiling, having now decided upon a pricing plan. This is the latest of a long list of examples where networks and operators have realised the growing consumer shift from traditional pay-TV to online streaming.

For the past 15 months MIDiA Research has been tracking every quarter more than 60 leading TV shows across the US, UK, Canada and Australia. With the fragmentation of TV audiences and the rise of streaming video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that are notoriously guarded with their data, it is becoming progressively more difficult for TV companies and advertisers to know just how popular individual TV shows actually are.