Insight: Netflix Has A “Bloat” Problem And It Killed “Tuca & Bertie”

 

 

Netflix is software. It’s content is the feature set of that software. This is not debatable.

What IS debatable is whether or not Netflix has a bloat problem. If you’ve worked in any sort of tech industry as a coder or programmer, you know exactly where I’m going with this.  If you haven’t done so, allow me to explain. “Bloat” is a term used to describe software that gets too “big” for whatever hardware it’s installed on and as such problems arise. A common example of this is a last generation mobile phone that can’t install updates anymore because the hardware just wasn’t meant to handle all of the additional programming needed to run effectively so hardware has to work harder to run it.

Similarly, you could argue that Netflix absolutely has a bloat problem. In this case, the issues arise from too much content, an outdated user-interface, and lacking the means to make your hardware efficiently manage the program e.g. have you ever logged into Netflix thinking, “what is there to watch?” all the while the service is blinding you to everything they have available. Whether you’ve watched it a bunch of times or never before, Netflix’s outdated algorithm (similar to algorithms used by Facebook and Google to feed you news) “thinks” it know what you want to watch based on prior interests instead of letting users discover new content on their own. Watched The Office recently? Well you’re gonna love these stand-up comedy specials. Watched 30-seconds of a Bob Dylan documentary and hated it (true story)? Well HERE! Here’s more documentaries about everything from serial killers to weed farms.

Because of this, an animated series like Tuca & Bertie was doomed from the start. There was simply no other series that you could accurately compare it to on Netflix therefore any meaningful algorithms for recommended viewing were effectively made useless.  Yes, it looked like BoJack Horseman, but then you could make the argument that a lot of anime looks the same only to realize that Akira’s gonna be a way different play than FLCL. So, take aesthetic away, and what do you have left? While Tuca & Bertie is an animated comedy, and an algorithm may pick up on the fact that you watch a lot of them, but are fans of Love Death & Robots, Paradise PD, or F is for Family going to fall in love with Tuca & Bertie? Those are largely male-focused efforts so, probably not.

Lately, Netflix has been trying this new thing to make sure that you get DIRECTLY to whatever show you want to watch. So, they’ll ask editors like me to make sure a link to the show they are trying to promote gets posted in hopes that you’ll, I don’t know, save that link for later or make sure to add the series to your shows to keep track of. But, how does that work when most of Tuca & Bertie’s promotion was with newspapers? Lisa Hanawalt did a whole big spread in New York Times , a publication that the President of the United States convinces more than half of the country to not bother reading. Links for series are then sprawled across numerous social networks, Facebook/Instagram, Youtube, and the like. The problem here? Netflix has now set itself up to make sure every one of those platforms advertises one of THEIR original series. Follow any of Netflix’s social accounts? Guarantee you’ll hit an ad for Facebook’s Human Discoveries should you decide to peruse through your Instagram feed. It’s a failure in distribution and lazy marketing.

What Netflix has failed to do, is to build long-standing relationships with most of it’s content. For every one maniacal blitz for an upcoming season of Stranger Things, most anime seldom gets a mention and falls by the way side. You couldn’t even find most coverage of Tuca & Bertie online with other publications not shamelessly trying to cash in on the SEO opportunities of BoJack Horseman by offering up way more opportunities for click bait rather than anything meaningful that you could learn about the series. We were the only publication that did full season review of the series…the only. Most, if not all, review the first four to five episodes of a Netflix series and call it a day. Granted, a far cry from when BoJack Season One premiered and with only our publication being the first to do a proper season review of the Netflix series.

Netflix has often noted on financial conference calls that their competition isn’t other streaming services, and they’re right. Their competition is whatever the hell else is able to be accessed by your PS4s, Smart TVs, or Rokus. This literally could be anything. When Netflix posts something on Youtube, they are, in fact, aiding a stout competitor of eye balls. It’s a lazy way to do marketing, and one that could start causing fluctuations in stock performance and profitability in the coming years. Choice and price are going to be key motives . Remember my software comparison? Apple iPhone is absolutely the trendier and sexier option for mobile phones, but Android is the most popular operating system for mobile in the world. Cost, availability, ease of use, these are all things that your software has to do right to maintain a loyal fanbase. Otherwise, you become Blackberry.

Netflix isn’t quite Blackberry, yet. But, if their marketing team doesn’t get more creative, they will be. If your department doesn’t plan on promoting new content effectively, then you’re going to have to go the other route in the form of allowing your content to “find” it’s audience which could potentially take three seasons before you see any effective returns. That, and Netflix needs a series user and back-end upgrade to stay with the times. Subscribers are already flocking to the greener pastures of the likes of Hulu just because there’s new content posted literally every day and it’s easy to find. Netflix has a bloat problem, and it needs to be fixed before the likes of WarnerMedia, Apple+, and Quibi hit the scene and take more eyeballs.