There is a conversation in the content industry: the old titles that Netflix can turn into audience phenomena. We are not talking about series recovered from oblivion but about productions that, after passing through other streaming services without pain or glory, can become instant hits again thanks to the mass of viewers that Netflix accumulates and their consumption habits. After making Suits fashionable again in the summer, now the series that could be another recycled phenomenon is Young Sheldon.
Analysts have realized this when seeing the figures published by Nielsen, the audience measurement company in the United States. Between November 20 and 26, according to the report, 963 million minutes of Young Sheldon were watched among those who watched the episodes on Netflix and those who preferred to watch the prequel to The Big Bang Theory on HBO Max, where it has always been. been available as it is a Warner Bros. production.
If we take into account that the episodes last about 20 minutes, this implies that more than 48 million episodes have been watched in a week in the country. And, if the data from the previous week is analyzed, it can be deduced that the majority of these views belong to Netflix: the previous week, when Netflix still did not have the broadcast rights to the first five seasons, the sitcom only generated 82 million of minutes of viewings. In short, Netflix has multiplied Sheldon Cooper’s consumption by 11.
With these audiences, the industry’s suspicions are confirmed: Netflix does not even depend on the production of original series to dominate streaming consumption. It is enough to recycle third-party hits due to its penetration in the market (it has 247 million subscribers, 77.3 million of which are in the United States and Canada) and the willingness of its clients to stay hooked for hours with content from its catalog. . In the current climate, Netflix will benefit even more.
And, faced with the losses of rival streaming platforms, studios are adopting a new philosophy with respect to their content: they no longer think that they must exploit it exclusively but rather that they must obtain an economic return by selling the broadcasting rights to third parties. . NBCUniversal, for example, earned between $25 and $50 million for sharing the broadcast rights to the first seven seasons of Suits with Netflix.
Since the eighth season was left exclusively for Peacock, their streaming service, it would be necessary to see if they attracted customers to their platform (or perhaps they made users who have in common with Netflix become interested in Suits in their catalog). And, catching on, they now have creator Aaron Korsch developing a new lawyer series set in the same legal universe as Suits.
However, the maneuver was even more advantageous for Netflix which, for the price of one or two seasons of an original lawyer series (that is, between 8 and 16 episodes), had 124 episodes at their disposal with which to retain the spectators. And this has just begun. In 2024, Netflix will share with Disney veteran series such as This is us, The resident, White collar, How I met your mother, Lost or Prison break.
While rival platforms try to clean up their accounts, profitable Netflix has all the numbers to retain viewers with recycled hits and increase its dominance. Fans are also now wondering if this success could motivate the cancellation of Young Sheldon, whose seventh season pending broadcast will theoretically be the last.
