ARE NETFLIX’S FANS ABANDONING CABLE? IS HBO GETTING AS MUCH OF THEIR ATTENTION? — PART II
ARE NETFLIX’S FANS ABANDONING CABLE? IS HBO GETTING AS MUCH OF THEIR ATTENTION? — PART II
To get you up to speed, give the first part of this series of entries a quick perusal here . You’ll be glad you did.
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An adaptation of the BBC mini-series of the same name , produced for Netflix by A-list director/producer David Fincher ( Benjamin Button, Seven, etc.), and based on the novel by Michael Dobbs, the first 13-episodes of Netflix ’s Kevin Spacey starring, American remake premiered on the streaming service in 2013. A season of the dark, twisted political melodrama has followed annually since then until this year. But a new season has been promised for 2017.
The show tells the tale of Spacey’s character, a congressman passed over for Secretary of State when we first meet him, and not at all happy about it. Fans of the show watch Spacey’s machiavellian maneuvering through the beltway, and his ascent up the ladder, in his desperate quest for power.
We’ll spare spoilers, and get to the charts — while under-indexed (meaning, below the baseline average) by half, the Netflix show finding greatest favor here — surprisingly — is Narcos; the program whose first 10 episodes told the story of Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Very significant then, that Cards’ fans — by far one of the biggest things on Netflix have both potentially, according to our multiple metric, and in actuality according to the percentages, found the greatest satisfaction in HBO ’s enormously popular Game of Thrones (which we’ll be exploring more in depth later).
Again, we see that not all have abandoned cable just yet (for the record, and to respond to those who might say something, we know HBO has a streaming channel — HBO GO — but you must subscribe to the service on cable to access it).
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Next we return to the land of the Marvel Television Universe , as we wrote about in our last entry . The hit series Daredevil was merely the first of a planned array of series, mirroring what Disney and Marvel had done on the big screen.
The way they established their cinematic Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, individually, so they could finally team them up as The Avengers . On TV they’re establishing Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage , and Iron Fist — all B-list book titles, and more cult faves — so they ultimately can premiere their team-up series, The Defenders .
Unsurprisingly, Daredevil creams the competition here, with fans of this sister series 163.6 times more likely to follow the adventures of the blind guy in the red leather than the average social media user.
Netflix shows in general are strong with this crowd, but Westeros rises again, saying “you nerds can’t give us of HBO up, can you?!” with fans of JJ 11.2 times more likely to be fans of Game of Thrones than the average.
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As a huge fan of 30 Rock , this entry’s author often wondered how any non-New Yorker could even watch the show. It was so New York-centric in its tone, references, characters, and more crucially jokes.
Kimmy was created by the same team — Tina Fey, of course, and former 30 Rock showrunner Robert Carlock. It was simply inspired by the fact that series’ star Ellie Kemper is one of the most naturally funny, likable, and charismatic actresses ever. That people weren’t lining up to build a series around her is astounding.
Tituss Burgess, the series’ co-star, was a recurring performer on 30 Rock who seemed an undiscovered comic treasure, in his own right, deserving of something bigger than those shows in which unapologetic gay, black actors tend to get cast (which for the most part is none of them). He and Kemper have incredible chemistry, though, and the show became an overnight hit for the streaming service, renewed for a second season immediately.
Like it’s predecessor the show seems so New York-centric it’s difficult to imagine what the folks in Peoria are thinking. When 30 Rock was canceled for its low ratings, many New Yorkers scratched their heads in confusion. Living here, you’d have thought it was the most popular show on TV,
Looking at our DMA maps — one of many insanely cool and informative features available among StatSocial’ s very robust reporting — which shows what portion of a social audience resides in what part of the country, we see that NYC’s prominence is profound.
For contrast, here’s Los Angeles.
For stark contrast, here we drive just an hour and change south of Manhattan to Philadelphia, where they really don’t seem much interested.
And to make our point, the charming Miss Kemper kills in the Unbreakable Miss Schmidt ’s fictional hometown, who is practically a character on the show itself (much as we often said of 30 Rock ).
Grace and Frankie tops out the Netflix chart here, but again those damned dragons on HBO are the real winners.
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Created by Dan Franck, the author best known for his 1991 French novel La Séparation, and its subsequent film adaptation, Marseille stars perhaps the most famous living French actor, and surely France’s most celebrated, Gérard Depardieu.
The eight-episode first season went live on the streaming service this May, with a season already ordered for next year.
Maybe the show’s foreign roots and subtitles have found it with an audience more concerned with adult things, but here House of Cards — and not HBO ’s dag nabbed dragons — is the clear victor, with fans of this very mixed-reviewed Depardieu vehicle 31 times more likely to watch Kevin Spacey be evil than the average viewer. That said, they are still four and a half time more likely to watch those dragons. And, well, that ain’t nothing.
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Taking place in the fictional and comically named Mexican city of Nuevo Toledo, this Mexican co-produced comedy-drama (the writing staff is both Mexican and American) tells the story of soccer team, Cuervos FC.
The show chronicles the power struggle between a brother and sister, trying to take control of the team, in the wake of the death of their father, the team’s original owner and patriarch. Generally well reviewed, the show premiered its second season in fall of 2015, and has yet to announce whether or not there will be a third.
While the dragons win again, Netflix overall emerges victorious, with their House of Cards viewership particularly strong, and fandom of all other listed Netflix properties comfortably above the average.
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And to finally wrap up the Netflix-focused portion of this study — as we’re about to do the exact same thing, only now with HBO ’s current line-up,
Our final Netflix series in this little “study” is the Emmy nominated thriller, Bloodline . A show whose first season created a lot of buzz, but whose second season seemed to garner a more mixed response (wait til we get to HBO ’s True Detective , and then we can REALLY talk about that phenomenon).
What’s surprising here aren’t the killer numbers for Daredevil and House of Cards — arguably the two most popular dramas on Netflix (they don’t release ratings, so you sort of have to guess) — it’s the 11% and 50-times “multiple” result for HBO ’s excellent Silicon Valley . Meaning, of course, fans of Bloodline are 50-times more likely to also be fans of Mike Judge’s frightfully on-the-nose satire of the tech industry than the average social media user.
With Daredevil , for example, a result like that might make sense as — hey, it’s true — people who read comic books often work in tech. But why some apparently taut, well-plotted (during its first season at least) thriller?
Hit us up on Twitter if you have any thoughts on the matter.
No matter, big score for HBO (or “Home Box” as we old-timers might have been sometimes heard to call it).
Watch this space as more of this fun is coming, only next time in reverse!
You can check it out for yourself here .
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