Through mobile-elevated experiences, the culture of binge-watching has mediated the way we make the most of home entertainment. The likes of Netflix have not just harnessed the value of the Internet but have also managed to grasp just how responsive our country is to the intrinsic rewards of sans mains (no hands) entertainment.
According to Chris Jaffe, Vice President of Product Innovation, Los Angeles, Netflix has spent more than $6 billion on content alone for 2017 and $1 billion on technology advancements, accounting for 400 original series and films totalling over 1,000 hours of watching.
So far, the reception to their original content has been largely decent — be it the likes of Korean film Okja and German series Dark — while not all of it has been worth writing home about — like Hemlock Grove and Iron Fist — considering Netflix’s attempts to cater to as many tastes as possible, nowthrough regional productions too. “The real power of Netflix’s reach is what it enables through technology, for these stories to travel as far as possible.”
All hail TV
“As entertainment shifts online, consumers are discovering that they have more control over their viewing experiences than ever before. What they’re looking for today is choice, quality and greater flexibility, and these demands are driving new trends that are shaping the future of entertainment,” says Jaffe. He adds that television remains the enduring centrepiece, thanks to a tsunami of innovation to the bays of home theatre experiences; the advent of connected TVs continues to challenge just how up-to-date our homes really are.
Televisions have just about catered to this thriving of choice, be it the integration of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos or an influx of Ultra HD 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) content which supports 5.1 surround sound. It’s all about letting your device do the magic — or in other words, have it become autonomous.
The User Interface (UI) we see continually updating is the result of rigorous testing through batches of a million viewers at a time, coupled with underlying software processes. Jaffe explains that leaving the algorithmic power in the viewers’ hands is what gives the service that edge, helping people make “smart choices” about what to watch.
“Personalisation is a key ingredient in improving the UI; the inventory we use is big on that concept,” he says. The human psyche isn’t as predictable as Netflix’s inner workings, but recommendations are recycled every 24 hours to ensure a fresher viewing experience.
The legalese of it all
- Netflix first streamed online videos in early 2007. Subscribers to the DVD service could access a limited amount of digital streaming, ranging from 6 to 18 hours per month, depending on their DVD plan.
Competition and licensing are the key challenges streaming sites face, especially in India, where Amazon Prime and Hulu are rival champions. It’s true that Netflix is set apart for its strict ‘no advertising’ policy — undoubtedly one of its biggest hooks.
The core value of binge-watching is the uninterrupted experience, further drawing in viewers.
But why is it that when my peers have access to Friends in the US and Canada, I don’t get to watch it on Netflix in India? It boils down to licensing. After long negotiations Friends has been licensed to air in Canada and the US, but nowhere else in the world. And likewise, when Netflix in India can stream Rick and Morty, the show is unavailable for our North American counterparts.
Obviously, licensing agreements which are not exclusive to a single streaming platform are less expensive to obtain. As competition saturates the streaming television and movie marketplace, content owners and streaming services recognise the importance of exclusive content to viewers.
A lot depends on data and the infrastructure around it. Mobile viewing inclines heavily towards the advent of Netflix’s ‘download’ feature for those eager to stay tuned into the content. According to the company, India is amongst the top markets for download usage.
The service is also working on new mobile encodes which allow users to watch up to 25 hours of Netflix on just 2GB of data, and have decent picture quality even while streaming in low-bandwidth conditions: as low as 200kbps. In fact, an estimated 2.4 billion people used a smartphone this year, an increase of 10.8% from 2016.
India’s data boom has led to an increase in access to online content (especially through smartphones) for those living in parts of the country where data was formerly considered a luxury. Jaffe says Netflix is ensuring their experience is optimised to this sensitivity. “In August 2016, we travelled all over India and spent time in homes with people who weren’t even subscribed to the service. Through that and other learnings, we sought to understand and deliver upon various connectivity and bandwidth issues the everyday home may be having. It’s not just an infrastructure thing in India, but we’ve also spent a lot of time engineering how we deliver our content,” he says.
So next time, when you’re curled up on your couch ready to power through Narcos , take a minute to think of how streaming services in general have acclimated to our binging needs, and how we’ve let them.
