Netflix: No more binge releases soon?

Denise Bergert

With the Netflix streaming service, new series are usually released in full. All episodes are therefore available from the release date (binge release). In this way, viewers can decide for themselves whether they want to split up the episodes or watch all the episodes one after the other (binge). However, this could soon be over.

Binge releases not a viable business model?

Industry analyst Michael Nathanson sees little sense in this model for the future of Netflix. Puck News’ newsletter “What I’m Hearing” speculates that Netflix could possibly end the so-called binge releases soon. “While Netflix customers may have the ability to watch all episodes of each series at once, they also want the service to cost $1 a month and deliver caramel sundaes, and that’s not a viable business in the long run,” explains editor Matthew Belloni in the newsletter. In short, it might be more worthwhile for Netflix to release series episodes on a weekly basis, as is common with other streaming services like Disney+.

Customer loyalty through weekly publications

Netflix has already made its first attempts to move away from the binge releases with “Ozark” and “Stranger Things”. Here the episodes were not released individually, but in several packages. By releasing series episodes weekly, Netflix could keep its subscribers longer. If you currently subscribe to Netflix, you only need to pay a monthly fee if you want to watch a series in its entirety. You just watch all the episodes one after the other and then cancel your subscription. If Netflix relies on the new model with weekly releases, series fans would have to take out a subscription for several months, depending on the length of the series, in order to see all episodes. However, whether Netflix will actually stop binge releases in order to switch to weekly releases is still unclear. So far, the company has not commented on the allegations.