The way we experience a show’s progression and story arch
has not changed much since the advent of television. While technology has
improved the way we access the programs, we must still wait a week to watch new
episodes. This model works for many shows that have had full seasons without
any major fluctuations in ratings, but for other shows it may prove
detrimental. This Sunday, May 26, Arrested Development will have a chance to
test the new model for Netflix, where full seasons will become available all at
once.
Arrested Development began airing in November of
2003 on Fox to rave reviews from critics and a little over six million viewers.
In the show’s third season, the numbers significantly dropped for the final episode
to about three million viewers. Despite a myriad of rumors regarding the show’s
future, Arrested Development was cancelled and essentially put on the back
burner until recently when the show’s creators and Netflix decided to release a
final, full season exclusively on the Netflix website. Now the question is, will
Arrested Development succeed with this new business model? I am leaning towards
absolutely. According to Netflix, television fans enjoy what they call
“Binge-Viewing” where audiences spend hours watching full seasons in one
sitting. This binge-viewing model is ideal for Arrested Development because
while they did not experience a great run on network television, their cult
audience revealed themselves by contributing to the explosion of DVD sales the
show experienced. Those DVD sales show that there is a huge audience for the
show that may actually prefer experiencing the opportunity to watch the full
season whenever and however they desire.
Netflix has experienced great success with other programs
previously released under this business model. Most notably the show House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, was reportedly a success when its first full
season was released in early 2013. There is no telling how well House of Cards
actually performed, since Netflix won’t release the official numbers, but it
did well enough to earn a second season which signifies that people enjoy
binging on full seasons on Netflix.
