{"id":847,"date":"2015-04-14T03:07:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T08:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/?p=847"},"modified":"2015-04-15T00:48:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T05:48:35","slug":"netflix-leads-the-charge-in-binge-watching-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/2015\/04\/14\/netflix-leads-the-charge-in-binge-watching-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix leads the charge in binge-watching culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bahnt Freiberger<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over 57 million people around the world currently subscribe to Netflix. The online streaming service has come a long way from just DVD rentals, becoming one of the largest providers of online media content in the world.<\/p>\n

Last Friday\u2019s launch of Daredevil<\/em>, beginning a partnership with the lucrative Marvel franchise, only furthers Netflix\u2019s upward trend of the past few years. Daredevil<\/em>\u2019s serialized comic book storytelling,<\/a> with standalone episodes weaving into a larger story, is perfect for a service that thrives off delivering instant content to its many viewers.<\/p>\n

That love for instant streaming is the key factor in Netflix\u2019s growing dominance as a content provider. Internet streaming has completely revolutionized the way people view television. In a digitized world that wants everything now, Netflix has created a binge-watching culture where getting shows immediately is the norm.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Recent financial data<\/a> shows the binge-watching culture obviously works. Netflix brought in a revenue of over $1 billion in 2014, thanks to its 57 million global subscribers. These numbers show a 29 percent jump from 2013, where 44 million people had a Netflix account. However, the biggest jump in subscribers came in 2012, which had a 41 percent increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n

\"Netflix<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The year 2012 was a huge turning point<\/a> for Netflix, for many reasons. The company began rapidly expanding<\/a> into international territories, allowing over 40 countries to use its service. 10 million global streaming members were added during this time, increasing Netflix\u2019s impact on a worldwide scale.<\/p>\n

2012 also marked Netflix\u2019s transitioning its core audience from DVD rentals to Internet streaming. This allowed Netflix subscribers to binge-watch their shows, and provided better opportunities to get more content to viewers quickly and easily. However, this transition came at a cost. By forcing the transition to streaming, Netflix began losing DVD-only subscribers. Combined with large international investments to expand its global reach, Netflix found its jump in subscribers coupled with a drop in Net Income.<\/p>\n

Whereas the Net Income from 2010 to 2011 was $41 million, Netflix gained only $8 million from 2011 to 2012. The company still turned a profit, however, thanks to the increase in global subscribers and beginning the stateside transition to instant streaming.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all been uphill from there, as 2013 saw the addition of original programming to Netflix\u2019s already wide variety of content. Shows like House of Cards <\/em>and Orange is the New Black <\/em>launched on Netflix with the entire season available at once, allowing viewers to move through episodes at their own pace.<\/p>\n

The shows gathered plenty of praise, and since they were undeterred by commercials, week-long breaks or content editing for a general TV audience, they were free to tell stories the way they wanted. Another milestone came from continuing the cult comedy show Arrested Development<\/em>, making Netflix an avenue to resurrect shows that network television had given up on.<\/p>\n

Two years later, and Netflix continues to lead the binge-watching TV revolution. As this obsession grows, it will only gain more influence. Bradley University journalism professor Patrick Ferrucci weighed in on this growing cultural impact of Netflix\u2019s instant streaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is taking advantage of a very specific time period where people, especially younger people, are avoiding cable subscriptions that are so expensive,\u201d Ferrucci said. \u201cWhen Netflix started producing content, it opened up the floodgates. This is the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Younger people are indeed the answer, as Bradley students are getting on board with Netflix\u2019s binge-watching possibilities. Freshman Gary Cunningham, who shares an account with his parents, commented on his love for Netflix content.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can watch a bunch of obscure movies like Oldboy<\/em>,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cThey had it for streaming, didn\u2019t expect that, I watched it and loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cunningham also had his own thoughts on the popularity of binge watching.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetflix has created the binge watch culture, at least in terms of its being mainstream,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cWith pirating you can binge watch shows, but the public doesn\u2019t know how to do this. Netflix allows TV shows to be watched all at once, my guess is binge watching is the way of the future for home entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bahnt Freiberger Over 57 million people around the world currently subscribe to Netflix. The online streaming service has come a long way from just DVD rentals, becoming one of the largest providers of online media content in the world. Last Friday\u2019s launch of Daredevil, beginning a partnership with the lucrative Marvel franchise, only furthers Netflix\u2019s upward trend of the past few years. Daredevil\u2019s serialized comic book storytelling, with standalone episodes weaving into a larger story, is perfect for a service that thrives off delivering instant content to its many viewers. That love for instant streaming is the key factor in Netflix\u2019s growing dominance as a content provider. Internet streaming has completely revolutionized the way people view television. In a digitized world that wants everything now, Netflix has created a binge-watching culture where getting shows immediately is the norm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[50,37,181],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-car","tag-com-425","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}