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To drop all at once or release weekly?
That is the question that continues to plague some streaming services. However, according to a new study from Fandom, there’s no simple answer or one-size-fits-all approach to figuring out which type of model works best for each streaming platform.
However, several indicators may help guide the way for future streamer releases.
Fandom, the wiki hosting service that features wikis focused on entertainment, conducted its recent study to understand better how binge, weekly, and two-part releases impact viewer visitation and engagement by analyzing fan engagement across its platform.
The research pulls from FanDNA, Fandom’s first-party platform data, which provides research and consumer insights about entertainment and gaming, powered by the platform’s audience of 350 million global users.
Stephanie Fried, chief marketing officer of Fandom, said the company spends a lot of time using the data to understand what fans are doing overall.
“We have estimates for how much traffic we think is going to be created from new seasons and series of shows—and when things are above or below those estimates, we dig in to see why,” Fried told ADWEEK. “We look at the concepts they were based on. In some ways, it’s similar to how we used to do TV show ratings estimates.”
According to the Fandom study, weekly drops are more effective for both spikes in fan engagement during the release window and maintaining that engagement post-season finale. Weekly drops outpaced bingeable releases in terms of fan engagement, per Fandom’s data.
The data found that Prime Video’s Invincible, which aired its first season in March 2021 and released episodes weekly, increased 23 times above its traffic benchmark, while Netflix’s live-action Avatar series, which was released all at once in February 2022, only increased 7 times above its benchmark.
HBO’s second season of The Gilded Age, which first aired in March 2021 and released episodes weekly, rose 15 times above its benchmark during the time it aired from October 2023 to December 2023, whereas the second season of Netflix’s Young Royals, which had a binge model and premiered in November 2022, only increased 6 times.
