Wheel of Time Discussion - Spoilers(with book spoilers)

[Parmandur]

You discount "hate watching", which seems to be a rather significant component these days. Amazon knows instantly who is and isn't watching a show, when they're watching it, it they stop and start it multiple times... They don't need "ratings" to figure out if a show is worth running or not.

A major advantage that streaming has over older broadcasting models.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think people will come back. Certainly anyone who was a fan of the books is still going to want to come back and see how they handle series 2.

That’s not really going to be the measure of success though. With average 3 star reviews and 67% audience score on rotten tomatoes are they going to greenlight series 3-7, when they could instead greenlight the next equivalent to Power with its 4 star reviews and 87% audience score. Or Queens Gambit with its 5 stars and 94% audience score. Remember WOT isn’t in competition with Shanara or Game of Thrones. It’s in competition with the other proposals Amazon are receiving.

For me, series 1 had promise and some great elements, but dropped the ball a little too much for my liking. In particular the last episode was a bit of a damp squib. Of course I’ll keep watching, but that won’t be because the series made me want to… but rather that the books make me want to see how it turns out. If you haven’t read the books I’m not sure that impetus would be there.

Rotten Tomatoes is irrelevant. Companies care about two things.

1. Money. Espicially with movies it's the box office.

2. Amount of people watching. With streaming services at least.

It's better than it's 67% RT score although the worst episodes would rate about that.

 

[Maxperson]

I just peeked at rotten tomatoes and I found it interesting that the aggregate rating of all critics was 82%, but if you just looked at the top critics it was 54%.

 

[Parmandur]

I just peeked at rotten tomatoes and I found it interesting that the aggregate rating of all critics was 82%, but if you just looked at the top critics it was 54%.

It seems to me that among critics, the series was not well received by critics who wanted another Game of Thtones, but well received by critics who approached the show as it's own thing.

 

[Maxperson]

It seems to me that among critics, the series was not well received by critics who wanted another Game of Thtones, but well received by critics who approached the show as it's own thing.

I've never in my life been swayed by critics. I discovered in my teens that my tastes often disagreed with the "professionals" and I thoroughly enjoyed movies that they didn't. The only critics I ever really respected were Siskel and Ebert, because their tastes and mine mostly matched up. So they weren't guiding me so much as validating my opinion.

 

[TheSword]

I’m also not bothered by critics rating. I don’t watch TV because I’m expecting an artistic epiphany or an original piece of art. As we discussed in the Tyranny of Novelty thread I think originality is over rated!

On the other hand I do take notice of audience scores when something has been out for a while and has several thousand scores. Particularly with TV and films where there is so much to choose from.

Low audience scores are going to give me low expectations and given two things that have caught my eye and one has a noticeably lower audience score I’ll usually go with the other one. Same with Amazon products, hotel stays, restaurants and god knows what else.

Maybe these things don’t make a difference to you folks but believe me, companies don’t add review information because it’s an irrelevant icing on the cake… it influences buying decisions.

 

[Parmandur]

I’m also not bothered by critics rating. I don’t watch TV because I’m expecting an artistic epiphany or an original piece of art. As we discussed in the Tyranny of Novelty thread I think originality is over rated!

On the other hand I do take notice of audience scores when something has been out for a while and has several thousand scores. Particularly with TV and films where there is so much to choose from.

Low audience scores are going to give me low expectations and given two things that have caught my eye and one has a noticeably lower audience score I’ll usually go with the other one. Same with Amazon products, hotel stays, restaurants and god knows what else.

Maybe these things don’t make a difference to you folks but believe me, companies don’t add review information because it’s an irrelevant icing on the cake… it influences buying decisions.

I trust critics more than "user scores" as poisoned as they are by bot entries and bombers.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

"Eyes On" is the only measure that really matters, for Amazon. If the ratings are good enough, regardless of the audience scores, more will get made. No, Amazon isn't in competition with Shanara (it was cancelled) or Game of Thrones. They're in competition for subscriptions. If their aggregate programming is enough to keep building viewership, then they'll keep going with it. If a property doesn't meet those viewership goals, which typically will involve growth rather than retention, then it'll get the axe.

Indeed, fundamentally with any streaming service it's not about whether people love or enjoy a particular series, it's about whether the streaming provider believes that gaining or maintaining access to that series made a substantial number of people subscribe and/or maintain their subscriptions. Unfortunately for streaming services they don't have access to very good data on what weight a given piece of content had on their subscribership. While the stated reactions of audiences, or positive buzz, may be factors in renewing a show, fundamentally how viewed it was, how often, by how many people is the best indicator they've got.

Viewership is an even bigger factor with Amazon than most streaming services, because on Amazon people's subscription is (theoretically) an annual subscription and tied to a lot of other services, so while, say, Netflix can see some of its users subscribing, watching a particular show, and dropping the subscription until the next season of that show comes out or other patterns of subscription behavior, subscription behavior is generally a lot more static and hard to interpret with Amazon.

There are also other synergies to take into account for Amazon. Anytime a book gets a high profile adaptation by anyone Amazon captures much of the profits made from renewed interest in that book, especially if people read it on a Kindle. More importantly, it is no accident that their most expensive series coincided with the holiday shopping season. If they think it inspired a meaningful number of people to give prime a try and then take advantage of their prime membership to do a lot of their Christmas shopping on Amazon, it's going to keep getting renewed as long as that pattern holds.

 

[Maxperson]

Viewership is an even bigger factor with Amazon than most streaming services, because on Amazon people's subscription is (theoretically) an annual subscription and tied to a lot of other services,

It comes with Prime memberships for free, though, so it may be less important than you think. A whole lot of people buy prime memberships for the free shipping.

 

[Ryujin]

It comes with Prime memberships for free, though, so it may be less important than you think. A whole lot of people buy prime memberships for the free shipping.

Bought it for the free shipping. Stayed for the videos.