Latin America. It may be that it took Walter White almost the entire first season to become Heisenberg and it took Frank Underwood 13 episodes to become VP (spoiler!), but apparently, fans were already committed to the series long before the plot took those turns. We give you a hint: it wasn't in the pilot episode.
Netflix analyzed global streaming data, globally, of the first seasons of some of today's biggest series, including Netflix original series and other series premiered by other channels, with the intention of finding indicators of the moments when viewers were hooked.
It turns out that when advertisements and fixed programming schedules disappear, and consumers can choose to watch an entire season as they want, you can see how new fans of a series are born. In other words, 70% of the viewers who watched the hook episode went on and completed the first season, that is, the members were hooked and there was no going back.
"Given how precious primetime slots are on traditional television, we argue that the pilot is the most important episode in a show's life," said Ted Sarandos, Netflix's Chief Content Officer. "In our research, comprised of 20 series in 16 countries, we found that no one gets hooked on the pilot and this confirms that providing all the episodes at the same time to our members is more aligned with the way fans are created."
Although the episode viewers were hooked on was relatively consistent around the world, there were some geographical differences. The Dutch, for example, tend to fall in love with series faster, getting ahead of other countries by up to an episode, no matter the series. The Germans were caught up by Arrow very quickly while, in France, they became fans of How I Met Your Mother before anyone else. The Brazilians hooked up with Better Call Saul's Jimmy McGill before the Mexicans. In Australia and New Zealand, viewers take longer than the rest of the world to get hooked, even one or two episodes after all the others no matter what series it is. Despite the differences, hook timing does not correlate with audience size or attrition, regardless of series, episode number, or country.
Methodology:
The information of this research was obtained from accounts of members who watched the first season of all the selected series between January and July 2015 in Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Holland, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, and between April and July 2015 in Australia and New Zealand. A hook episode was defined when 70% of viewers who watched the episode continued to watch the first full season. The episodes they were hooked on were first identified by country and then averaged to define the global hook episode. The episode they were hooked on has no correlation with total viewers or desertion.
