House of Cards (Netflix)

[tighr]

In the US, no scandal will force the resignation of the President and no impeachment (and trial) will be orchestrated by one man. That wasn't even true in Andrew Johnson's trial.

It doesn't have to be orchestrated by one man, he simply has to get the ball rolling. The rest will snowball into place.

 

[Marc]

I'm afraid that I believe that an undefined royal prerogative has come in handy too often, even in recent years (cue Gough Whitlam and, if I understand the mechanism correctly, Stephen Harper.) The purpose of the British monarch is not to sign laws but to read proclamations of martial law.

Unhappily for the peoples of Britain and Ireland and many other places, Parliament has always carried out the correct policies, thus this essential function of British monarchy has thus far been left in reserve.

The equivalent in the US would be FEMA's continuity of government plans, along with Homeland Security's interesting arrangements about chain of command.

It's hard to guess how eager those who count really are to use such measures, but they do like to have the option.

Not sure was a man who was an Australian Labor Prime minister nearly 40 years ago has to with things.

Wonder if Netflix is going to sell it to other channels (don't have Netflix ).

It also got a fairly mediocre review in the Globe & Mail yesterday. The review put much of the blame on the production side due to the involvement of people with no tv experience. Being good in movies production the article argues doesn't make one suitable for the small screen.

 

[bigdaddy]

It's possible that yourself and Odo_ital are the only two people in America who haven't completed the season.

I haven't seen a single episode.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Then, you're letting the side down.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'll get to episode two tonight! I'm spending a lot more time trying to figure out what "rating" the show is getting. Finally found something...

Only two percent of Netflix's streaming customers watched the first episode of its new, highly-publicized original drama, House of Cards, according to Procera, which measures Internet use among cable and telco services.

Netflix refuses to reveal its own show ratings, but if the Procera numbers are true, it means that only about 540,000 Netflix streaming subscribers watched the first episode. (Netflix has 27 million streaming subs so two percent would come to 540,000.)

At this point, it's dicey to evaluate the success -- or lack their of -- of the show's debut. (Netflix added all 13 House of Cards episodes to its library last Friday.) But if we compare the Procera numbers to HBO, which has around 30 million subscribers (close to Netflix's 27 million), House of Cards would have to be considered a ratings disappointment thus far.

Any new HBO show that draws fewer than one million subscribers for its debut is regarded as a ratings disappointment, although the network will often keep the show afloat if it receives widespread critical praise.

...

On the plus side for Netflix, the Procera stats show that many people who did watch the first episode of House of Cards watched subsequent episodes as well. In fact, 1.3 percent of its total streaming sub base watched episode two.

Hmm, but as I've noted before, as a Netflix subscriber, I wouldn't have known this show existed if Netflix were my only information source. A couple days before the launch, I saw tons of ads offering the first episode free, so that might be Netflix's real test for the new show. And it's too early for anyone to be counting my viewing, since I haven't even seen the second ep but plan to see the whole thing.

Also, direct comparisons to HBO won't work since HBO doesn't have a slew of episodes and movies all available at the same time, distracting subscribers from seeing any given show within any given time period.

So Netflix is right not to let the numbers get out (it took some digging for me to even find this much), there are too many apples & oranges comparisons that could happen and make them look bad unfairly.

 

[tighr]

I'd like to know how many people added it to their queue, as well.

Part of the reason that network television shows (and to a lesser extent, HBO/Showtime shows) get such high ratings is because people without DVRs have no choice but to watch them live, the day they air. With Netflix, there is no such requirement. Plus, last weekend was the Super Bowl, maybe viewership will uptick this weekend.

 

[RoJoHen]

And I don't know how other people watch shows on Netflix, but I do one show at a time. I am currently watching "Supernatural." I will not move on to a new show until I am finished watching that show. Maybe I'll watch "House of Cards" next, but I'm not going to interrupt the show I'm currently watching.

 

[cylkoth]

I'll get to episode two tonight! I'm spending a lot more time trying to figure out what "rating" the show is getting. Finally found something...

Only two percent of Netflix's streaming customers watched the first episode of its new, highly-publicized original drama, House of Cards, according to Procera, which measures Internet use among cable and telco services.

We need to know how Procera determines what program is actually being streamed. Without that knowledge, it's hard to judge the accuracy of their report.

Although Netflix traffic levels on the North American networks that Procera monitors did not go up significantly over the weekend, we were able to distinguish the House of Cards traffic from other Netflix traffic.

How does an outside company determine and separate what content gets viewed at any given moment?

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's question of impartiality.

Netflix could give out it's own numbers but they could easily diddle them since really why can't they make up their own numbers if it means that they generate more profit?

So an outside source, probably a shell company they created and afforded autonomy, would have to be given complete access otherwise Netflixes advertisers who are handing over billions in advertising revenue would say "fuck off" prove to me you are giving me access to the demographics I want so that I can trust that you are not lying you smug bastard.

You know this, it's just logic.

Who is gagging for more so much so that they've acquired the English version for consumption?

 

[bigdaddy]

I think they should have released the episodes more spread out, even if it's three episodes a week for a month. If for no other reason than word of mouth and press. They got great press for a week, now there is not much.

 

[Guy Gardener]

People buy a DVD box sets and watch the crap out of them.

It's a practical business model to facilitate these people who are no longer a minority if DVD sales are to be believed.

The immediate binge is impractical because PEOPLE HAVE LIVES but once a 13 hours black of time can be booked, House of Cards can be totally put to bed, unless they're planning on watching one episode a night for 2 weeks.

No one is that strong unless real life forces them to be.

They'll quit because it's shit or start doubling up, then tripling up.

 

[bigdaddy]

All I'm saying is that March 1st you can watch the whole season at once. You release it slowly so the online people keep talking about it. No one is talking about the show, they are all talking about numbers.

 

[Guy Gardener]

No one is watching it so no one will watch it?

 

[cylkoth]

So an outside source, probably a shell company they created and afforded autonomy, would have to be given complete access otherwise Netflixes advertisers who are handing over billions in advertising revenue would say "fuck off" prove to me you are giving me access to the demographics I want

Netflix does not sell advertising on it's site or on any of the movies/shows they stream.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Curses!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I never heard of Procera, but they look like one of those Neilsens-for-the-digital-age wannabee companies springing up all over, like the ones that monitor and analyze social media discussions. They'd have a motive to be objective if they want to get corporate clients, which is how they'd make their money.

Netflix wouldn't be their main type of client (their clients are "carriers, broadband providers and higher education institutions"), so it looks like Procera is using the notoriety of the House of Cards launch just to raise their profile and maybe get a few more of their usual sorts of clients. Here's a longer discussion on their website.

These guys know a lot more about other people's business than they probably should.

We even saw one subscriber on a network that consumed 16G of his usage on House of Cards over the weekend (hmm, how would that affect broadband caps?)

Okay, which one of you guys did that?

They're spying on Sweden, too.

 

[od0_ital]

Watchin' the tenth episode now!

 

[lurok]

Just started binge-watch and enjoying enormously so far. I love Spacey's asides to camera, and find Robin Wright fascinating to look at.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I thought I was astonished by Robin's transformation between Buttercup and Jenny from Forest Gump. There's no gradual process with this woman, she just comes out of hiding every decade and says "This is me now, like it?"

Anyone thinking about Spacey from American Beauty talking about how wrong it was to take that tiny blonde child's virtue? How he grasped her innocence figuratively seconds before he was about to grasp her innocence literally and understood the utter wrongitudity of his propectus?

Kate Mara might be 30, but she still looks like she's... I remember her from Jack and bobby in 2002, she used to have a complete awkwrdness about herself... But it still feels like Kevin is treading water over the same moral delema about how wise it is to have sex with a child if she looks like an adult, except this time he's come to a different conclusion.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

TheWrap picks up on the Procera story...

We'd like to provide you with more than a speculative figure, but we can't. Netflix isn't releasing any numbers, and has no immediate plans to. So we're relying on some clever analysis from the broadband firm Procera, which monitored some of the country's largest cable and DSL networks on Saturday to extrapolate that between 1.5 million and 2.7 million people watched one or more episodes.

Netflix declined to comment.

Why won't Netflix share its actual numbers? Precisely to avoid articles like this one, which -- with solid numbers -- might gauge Netflix's early success against that of broadcast and cable networks.

Plus, why give HBO, Amazon and iTunes inside competitive info?

PS, I just got a red envelope with HoC advertising. Maybe they noticed I watched the first ep and stopped, and decided to give me a kick in the pants. (I'm probably giving them more credit than they deserve. More likely they still had a supply of blank red envelopes in my area and only now got down thru the pile to the HoC ones.)