
Netflix Orders New Children’s Show Based on ‘Magic School Bus’ - brutis
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/business/media/netflix-orders-new-childrens-show-based-on-magic-school-bus.html?smid=pl-share
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wallflower
Several years ago, I asked a friend who worked for a Cable company in their
Video-on-Demand division what the most popular show was in their catalog.

He answered that the most popular shows were kids shows (Teletubbies, Wiggles)
at 2AM or 3AM in the morning. Imagine a crying toddler being soothed by the
glow of their favorite show while the exhausted parent relaxes for a brief
moment.

Netflix has the data and like it did with House of Cards it knows that it
should partner with and/or create the content that its _youngest_ viewers are
demanding (especially at 3AM). The Netflix addiction might start even younger
now...

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Swizec
Alternative explanation: drunk and/or high people looking for easy-to-process
entertainment.

Hell, I'd rewatch Magic School Bus even if I wasn't drunk. That was a _great_
show.

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ams6110
Either way, Netflix's strategy to produce original programming that people
want is their weapon against ISPs trying to build their own on-demand
offerings and throttling Netflix.

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dragonwriter
Its more their weapon against being deprived of profitability by competitors
bidding up the prices of content from outside producers (and, especially,
those competitors locking up exclusive deals). When Netflix was mostly alone
in their market, they didn't really need their own programming, but once there
was competition, they did, independent of ISPs.

Its the same thing that HBO went through on cable.

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weisser
It's not just the Magic School Bus either!

>The companies declined to discuss terms of the deal, which follows Netflix’s
acquisition in the last year of rights to a number of Scholastic series,
including the original “Magic School Bus,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog” and
“Goosebumps.”

~~~
Pxtl
Oh God, not Clifford - Louis CK is spot on about Clifford:
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eix1CDVHYE](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eix1CDVHYE)

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programminggeek
Welp, Netflix gets it. If you have kids, you'll understand the allure of Magic
School Bus and you are all the more likely to stick with Netflix or sign up.

Much like the video game "console wars", exclusive content is something people
will pay for and it makes a platform very sticky.

~~~
joezydeco
My kids use my Netflix account way more than I do.

A lot of credit should go to whomever had the insight to create the Wii client
and dump the viewer directly into the "For Kids" UI. That was genius.

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tacoman
This is great, my kids love the books.

I work for a cable tv-like operator. I get everything for free, including OTT
content on tablets and stuff. My primary-school age kids only watch Netflix.
They don't even know the brand name of the TV product I work on day to day.

Thankfully their grandparents don't know what a Netflix is, have no idea that
almost everything can be had on demand, and continue to watch and pay for
overpriced old-school linear content.

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cpeterso
I wish there was news about the rumor that Netflix might produce another Star
Trek series.

~~~
burkaman
That rumor was mostly false. There have been "overtures", so someone at
Netflix is interested, but there is no planned production.

[http://larrynemecek.blogspot.ca/2014/06/hold-your-
horsesther...](http://larrynemecek.blogspot.ca/2014/06/hold-your-horsestheres-
no-netflix-cbs.html)

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quackerhacker
Netflix is really amazing to me! I am SO impressed by their model and the
plethora of data that they can just sift through (I love analytics and data
mining).

Netflix has went from dvds by mail, to video content distribution, to an
ACTUAL broadcast network. While I love their selection, I hope that they
release their episodes once a week. I'd imagine it would capture an audience
instead of marathoners.

From an investment standpoint, I can only imagine it being a matter of time
before all the data they have (like audience retention time, device types, and
internet speeds which can easily provide an assumption of demographic) be put
to use for video ad campaigns.

Simply awesome business model!

~~~
burkaman
Releasing all the episodes at once is definitely a good idea for a kids show.
Parents can schedule in the show whenever they want, they can use an episode
as a reward or push one back as a punishment, they just get maximum control
over their kid's entertainment.

For House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, etc. you can make the argument
that weekly episodes would be better, but for a kids show I think there is no
question that more control is the best strategy.

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lsaferite
What benefit do you get by releasing weekly vs. all at once though? I mean,
you could argue that you'll have people sign up for a trial to watch a series
then drop the service, but that's likely a rounding error for Netflix.

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johne20
As a parent, I still can't believe Netflix doesn't offer better parental
controls. All we want is a whitelist of programs that our kids can watch.

Children programming is by far more than 90% of our Netflix usage.

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joezydeco
The Nintendo Wii client has a "kids only" whitelist.

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tokipin
nice! reminds me of the recent Reading Rainbow kickstarter :D

