If you’re paying close attention – and most Netflix viewers aren’t – you might have noticed that there’s a change coming to the streaming service. Once the darling of the internet, because viewers could watch everything they wanted in a single place, Netflix seems to be racing to the bottom of the watchability scale.
That’s not immediately obvious. There’s no doubting the decline in the platform’s original offerings of late, and the rise of competing services means it’s not the one-stop shop it once used to be. But Netflix looks to be chasing quantity at the expense of quality. That’s… fine, in a way. Quality tends to be expensive, at least in the short term. Unfortunately, quantity is also expensive. In the long term.
Net flex
The original streaming service (YouTube doesn’t count) has revealed it is parting ways with several of its high-profile creators. Out the door are David Fincher and Shawn Levy, the minds behind House of Cards and Stranger Things, respectively. Last year, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer also departed. More recently, Netflix’s Reed Hastings left the company after almost three decades of service.
These departures make sense for the company in a business sense. Fincher’s last few projects, The Verge points out, have lost the streamer large amounts of money. There are still bigger names attached to Netflix, but their projects (like Greta Gerwig’s Narnia films) have yet to land. Depending on performance, there could be a greater shift at the streaming platform than the one already coming.
The weird thing is that we’ve seen this before, with the venerable History Channel. It was once a favourite among history buffs who tuned in for its documentary content. The best thing you might recall from that service in recent years would be Vikings, which proved both compelling and surprisingly historically accurate. For history nerds who wanted even more, there was also a companion YouTube series called Athelstan’s Journal.
Netflix is History (Channel)
What do these two things have to do with each other? Reality TV, as it happens. The History Channel is now better known for giving the world the Ancient Aliens guy (Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, a surprisingly chill dude) than it is for its prime historical content. The channel is now home to low-rent reality TV that’ll chew up a few hours without adding anything to your life. In other words, it’s the total opposite of what it set out to be.
Netflix set out to be the place where folks can watch anything they want, whenever they want. Instead, there seem to be changes afoot, in the same vein as the History Channel’s reality TV decline. The streamer is pushing reality TV much harder than it used to. Again, the economics make sense. These shows are easier to make, easier to watch (or ignore), and don’t cost as much as David Fincher or Guillermo Del Toro do. But are they as valuable?
Ehh… probably not. Just released by Netflix is a reality show based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The original story and Gene Wilder film were cautionary tales about not being unpleasant people. The show resurrected Gene Wilder (using AI) to narrate this abomination.
Upcoming is a retake of the Stanford prison experiment, one of the university’s more notorious studies. The New Stanford Prison Experiment envisions the same thing, but on demand. The original study placed students in charge of each other in a prison setting. It didn’t go well. The televised version will be as scripted as reality shows typically are — reality TV is like professional wrestling in that sense — with the added benefit that it’ll be sanitised to prevent liability issues for Netflix. It’s likely to be both horrifying (as a concept) and incredibly banal (in execution).
There are also a raft of reality TV sequels and new concepts coming in the next twelve months.
Cheap shots
Reality TV is cheap. Either a small cast is paid (like the folks from Pawn Stars), while the remainder are unpaid/scripted/manufactured (like Jerry Springer was), or there’s one big prize with most contestants in it for the dubious fame and a possible payday. Either way, it’s cheaper than hiring real actors. It’s also, obviously, a direction Netflix is leaning in right now.
And there will be watchers. Viewers will always tune in when there’s the possibility of embarrassment, actual injury, or ‘real’ drama. Nudity is also a big draw, which is why Temptation Island is getting another season. But there’s no substance. That seems a fair mirror of Netflix’s recent offerings and tactics. They just want viewers to watch. They’re not fussy about what it is. It’s all (more affordable) background noise now.
The news industry suffered a similar fall. Investigative journalism was once the pinnacle of news reporting, but it was long, laborious work. It was also, in objective terms, important. The rise of the internet showed that long-form journalism, which could take a year or more of painstaking investigation, could be soundly beaten by a viral video of someone being run over in a parking lot. That’s one of the reasons (there are many others) why news reporting has declined in the last three decades. It’s cheaper to chase clicks than it is to make a difference to the world.
Don’t go expecting Netflix to fall from grace because of reality TV. The service will continue for a long time, just on its cash reserves. But don’t expect much quality once its executives figure out how many more people will watch other people do stupid things on camera than anything else the company produces.
