[brownbat]

They spent the last 10 years conducting massive studies of what people like to watch.

If they weren't able to come up with some hits after that, then they weren't trying.

Somewhere behind the scenes, Netflix is applying sabermetrics to Hollywood.

Except it's worse than in baseball... Unlike Oakland, all their competitors (except maybe Amazon) can't just copy their approach, because all their data is private, not public.

[soylentcola]

Sure, but you'd think that with all of the market research done by TV and cable over the past several decades (and it's not as if Comcast and Time Warner don't track what people watch on their digital cable services) they'd have some inkling as to what's currently in demand and what may be underrepresented.

Perhaps it's just more efficient for Netflix to commission content or buy it and then distribute it themselves. The on-demand model means no concerns about finding the right timeslot and that's something even NBC has to deal with despite their Comcast ownership.

Or maybe as the newcomer, they have to take more risks whereas the older networks are more risk-averse. Right now Netflix reminds me of nothing so much as it does HBO. It's got older movies and content that it's licensed from others and it's got its own content that often seems less concerned with getting the broadest and widest appeal.

Netflix streaming is basically the evolution of premium cable and all they really did differently was jump straight to online-only delivery.

[brownbat]

> they'd have some inkling as to what's currently in demand and what may be underrepresented.

My working assumption is that the lessons learned from the prediction engine they've built are a qualitative leap over just "what's popular, assuming all of the US is composed of identical viewers." Or even a few demographic divisions.

Eh, I could be wrong though. Maybe this is just a gutcheck, I think Netflix is better at data science than other studios, because they have more experience working with programmers and large datasets.

[Shorel]

It's not the fault of Netflix that Nielsen ratings suck so much.