“Netflix has moved into territory that sets it apart from familiar structures of production, broadcasting or branding of television.”  I will use the show ‘Money Heist’ to demonstrate Netflix’s capital as an internet-distributed broadcaster. Money heist was created as ‘La Casa de Papel’ by Alex Pina and was initially aired in 2017 on the Spanish channel Antenna 3. It was originally supposed to be a two-part limited series, but in late 2017 Netflix acquired global streaming rights, they recut the series into 22 shorter episodes which were released globally on Netflix, with the first half released on December 20, 2017, and the second part on April 6 2018. Netflix renewed the series in April 2018 with a considerably higher budget for 16 additional episodes. On July 19, 2019 part 3 was released, consisting of eight episodes. Part 4 was released on April 3, 2020, and had 8 episodes as well.

Netflix undoubtedly gave the money heist a platform which saw the show reach great success. “Binge-watching has evolved into Netflix’s main marketing strategy in the course of popularization of streaming,” so by breaking the seasons into parts and then dumping several episodes at once viewers become captivated and engaged in the show, and in turn binged episodes back-to-back. “Within months of arriving on the streaming service in 2017, the thriller had become the single most watched series in countries including France, Italy and Argentina and Brazil, and its third series – was watched by 34 million households in the first week alone.”

“It is also important to note that Binge watching as viewing practice fits well into the structures of post-postmodern capitalism where consumer habits and identity construction as intertwined. A major part of binge-watching is that it is disconnected from scheduled television, as Jason Jacob argues, such viewing practices serve to remove any ‘pollution of text through advertising breaks”

“The practice of binge-watching implies not only viewers desire for autonomy in scheduling when they want to watch what, but also a wish for pure text (as Jacobs terms it) that is distinctively not part of the television flow.”

References:

Jenner, M. (no date) Is this TVIV? On Netflix, TVIII and binge-watching. Available at: nms.sagepub.com.

Pilipets, E. (no date) From Netflix Streaming to Netflix and Chill: The (Dis)Connected Body of Serial Binge-Viewer.

Tia Brown.