If you wanted to see the shift that’s happening in Netflix in real time, look no further than the current US Top 10 list. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this before, but just a single Netflix scripted original is on the list, Supacell, sitting at #2. Everything else is either a reality series or a licensed series.
Let’s go through the list so you can see what I mean:
- The Man With 1,000 Kids (Reality Documentary)
- Supacell (Scripted Netflix Original)
- Worst Roommate Ever (True Crime Documentary)
- Sprint (Sports Documentary)
- Barbecue Showdown (Reality Series)
- Suits (USA Licensed Drama)
- Your Honor (AMC Licensed Drama)
- Owning Manhattan (Reality Series)
- American’s Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (Sports Documentary)
- The Mole (Reality Competition Series)
I think this best exemplifies a shift where Netflix is positively pouring resources into reality series, discovering what traditional TV did in the 2000s (and continues to this day on places like Discovery) that reality series are A) really cheap, B) really fast to crank out and C) often very widely watched.
It’s true, Netflix’s biggest series can plant themselves at #1 or in the list for a long time, your Bridgertons or Stranger Things or what not, but the trend is very much shifting the direction of reality True Crime, reality dating, reality competition, reality sports documentaries, reality real estate drama, etc. It’s time as a flat circle in action, and Netflix is offering something many of its rivals, outside of Max with Discovery, don’t have in this volume.
Some of these are good shows, some are bad. I’m a big fan of F1: Drive to Survive for one, and I will admit I’ve seen too many seasons of Love is Blind (not going to call that one “good,” though). But you throw everything at a wall and see what sticks. If it doesn’t, who cares, it cost 3% of Squid Game. While almost none of these series are going to be in Netflix’s most watched shows ever list, it’s clear they have been encroaching on scripted series for a long while. And we are also seeing an era where many of Netflix’s most popular shows are licensed, like the eternal reign of Suits on the service.
I would not expect this to change much. Netflix certainly wants to keep making big-budget hits, but if they can wallpaper the service with much cheaper reality programming, they’re going to do that as well, and this week is an example of how that can sometimes be all the most popular series on the service, almost.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
