Poor ROI

Ah, poor Vic. Caught in Netflix's habit of keeping one season cancelled shows. Frustrating, isn't it? I've learned to not bother watching unless there's at least a second season. There's only so much heartache a viewer can take. There are exceptions, of course. But it's a gamble.

I saw a great meme today saying Netflix should have taken control of the Coronavirus because nothing they do runs for more than three seasons.

It's funny because it’s true.

I saw that meme too lol, which is interesting cause I seem to remember (could be wrong) wasn't Netflix 2.0 (post dvd) built on buzz from renewing cult network castoffs? Course it's sometimes different once you're an established property and have a 'justifying expenses in the present' department. haha  

Critical Drinker makes some valid points. Many producers do feel the obligation (or right?) to add the "message." So if you want your entertainment unfiltered, you better stick with the original anime or graphic novel...Heck, having just written that, I seem to recall Superman is now bisexual or bi-curious? Whatever floats the boat of those controlling this franchise dating back to 1938 - The only option you have is to cast your votes with your wallets.

Changing hearts and minds is some pretty serious stuff which begs the question, "To what end?" As a writer, my hope is people will find my stories mildly entertaining with no socially transformative agenda involved.

Jon Kent. The son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane is bisexual.

I worked for a consumer packaged goods company a few years back. Excluding IT (where I worked) the entire office was marketing and finance people. There was "company finance"  Accounts payable, etc. The others were brand finance people and they worked with the brand marketing people. Every month we'd get new data (called supplementals) from Nielson (Same company that does TV ratings) that was tacked on to the quarterly data we would receive (The quarterly data was another gong show).  I would get hounded to have that data uploaded and ready for them the instant we had it. They would crunch numbers for days. All of this was dependent on how much they were going to reduce the price by for a sale, where they would have these sales, and when.

This would coincide with a marketing campaign that basically had the same discussions. They basically could calculate the profit, or number of sales they could make just on the cost of the campaign and price of the product.  They would literally have meetings about pennies and what that could do to their market share. Sometimes discussions were about cannibalizing profit just to increase marketshare so the next month/quarter would increase both.

Increase sales/profit you got a pat on the head. Lose and the eye of Sauron watched your every move. Spend less in marketing and sell more - you had to explain to the President how that was possible. It was a finely tuned machine - so much so they sold approximately 42 million packages of product a year plus or minus 1%.

I'd be curious to know if this level of analysis is done in the movie industry. I would imagine it would be, but I guess if the person in charge of the gold is in charge of the decisions to make the movies, you get whatever they want which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Xavier, I've worked in marketing, adverstising, and publishing, so I know exactly what you're talking about. With any creative industry, it's pretty much the opposite. The flip side of things, if you will.

Hey look, we have $2000 to make a film. Will any of these scripts work? No? Auto-reject.

That's an exaggerated scenario, but hopefully you get the idea. Of course everyone wants to make films. That's understood. The question then becomes, can we make the film? It's a simple yes and no analysis.

In terms of any success, that's after the fact. In fact, that's where marketing people like you and me come in. If, and only if, it's in the budget.