David Stapf is considered to be one of the nicer and certainly one of the more loyal folks who toil around Hollywood, or at least the fringes where most of what’s left of the Los Angeles production business calls home these days. He’s been associated with CBS for a quarter-century, the last 20 in charge of the in-house production division, CBS Studios. He’s been around almost as long as NCIS, and he’s managed to stick around longer than several network presidents and, now, the Redstone family. In this climate, that’s an enviable track record.
But he does have some new bosses as of this week and, natch, there’s likely a little bit of nervousness when that happens. Which might explain why he was given a lengthy and highly personalized opportunity to wax eloquent about both his recent and legacy successes from DEADLINE’s intrepid Nellie Andreeva yesterday, a follow-up piece to one from Andreeva’s colleague Katie Campione that dropped earlier in the week that was apparently triggered by some already outdated Nielsen figures that showed some surprising success for a show that had been largely overlooked:
The first week of June was jam-packed for streaming, with an influx of new titles that shook up Nielsen‘s viewership charts…The top spot went to former Showtime series Your Honor, which started a modest ascent up the charts the week prior after it first three days on Netflix as well as on its permanent streaming home, Paramount+. During this interval, it exploded with 1.5B minutes viewed — approximately triple the viewing it had the week before.
Campione’s follow-up recap of the ensuing week, which dropped yesterday, was both laudatory and apologetic at once:
Six titles exceeded the billion-minute mark from June 10 to 16, led by Bridgerton, which took the top spot back from Your Honor with 3.5B minutes viewed…There was a fairly wide margin between first and second place, as Your Honor came in No. 2 with 1.8B minutes viewed. However, that’s still up 24% from the week before, indicating that the series continued to gain traction since landing on Netflix.
Which has provided the chance for Stapf to take a victory lap and offer his Monday (well, Thursday) morning quartebacking about why this happened:
“We’re extremely proud of the show and knew how good it was,” Stapf said of his expectations about Your Honor‘s performance on Netflix. “Having it air on another platform, we anticipated more people discovering it; audiences always find things that are good.”
Especially when they can be found on Netflix. And to her credit, Andreeva allows Stapf to devote some of his manifesto to point out how good–and vital– they have been to his efforts:
Like was the case with another successful in its original run series, USA Network’s Suits, Your Honor has been able to reach a new, wider audience on Netflix, and its resurgence has inevitably brought up questions about a third season…While Your Honor was a library acquisition, the other Kings drama on the Nielsen streaming rankings, Evil, is a rare ongoing streaming original series with a partial second window on a rival platform. That has worked out well, according to Stapf. The Paramount+ numbers of Evil go up because it’s getting additional exposure on Netflix,” he said.
It’s the last sentence of his spiel that I’m taking some issue with. If that’s indeed the case, this would have been the perfect opportunity to provide even relative context for what that halo effect’s impact has been on the business unit that is clearly the priority of Paramount’s new management team. Stapf unsurprisingly passed on providing that backup.
He also offered his version of historical perspective on how Evil, a show that did not deliver sufficient linear audience on CBS, is benefitting in a manner akin to a much broader-appeal and enduring one:
Stapf compared the impact to the cable syndication model, noting how a decade ago, repeats of NCIS on USA Network lifted the ratings for new episodes airing on CBS.
“I sort of equate this to being similar,” he said. “You’re exposing the show to that many more people, so potentially some of those people are new viewers, and then they, in turn, go back to watch previous seasons or future seasons.”
And indeed, when one looks at what happened when USA began licensing NCIS reruns, the numbers do back him up to an extent. USA’s availability began in the fall of 2008 (even then, it was non-exclusive; the ION network also licensed a couple of runs at the same time). NCIS’ audience on CBS surged by +23%, from 14.4M to 17.8M, between the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons.
But that was at also at a time when DVR penetration was rising markedly, largely from the growth in digital cable and satellite providers providing the technology to their subscribers at nominal incremental cost. And as a show that aired at 8 PM, as demographic counterprogramming to the #1 show of the era, AMERICAN IDOL, NCIS benefitted disproportionately from time-shift viewing. As has been the case from the start of time-shift viewing audience measurement, a greater proportion of that non-live audience occurs with 8 PM shows being played back later in prime time.
Not to mention the fact that custom studies of source and destination have always existed to more concretly demonstrate the theory that Stapf postulated; indeed, it’s statistically possible to prove that a significant proportion of CBS viewers watched those USA reruns. And considering NCIS’ audience grew an additional +9% year/year in 2009-10 with essentially consistent competition, the potential to compare those audience flow results year/year to further make the point that rerun exposure indeed translates to first run was there. As it was at the time, when Stapf was around to have ordered them.
I bring these points up not to be nit-picky but to point out to Stapf that the sheriffs in charge now are much more numbers-oriented and parochial than their predecessors. Facts score more points with them that hyperbole and wishfulness. Deliver meaningful numbers, period.
Certainly don’t try to give credence to the role social media theoretically plays–or should play–in the equation. Andreeva opened up a slippery slope by calling this out:
During the interview with Stapf earlier this week, #SaveNCISHawaii was trending on X. While NCIS has been a blockbuster franchise that has spawned multiple long-running series, the latest installment, NCIS: Hawai’i, was canceled by CBS after three seasons. It was one of several painful April cancellations for CBS Studios at CBS, alongside So Help Me Todd and CSI: Vegas, when the network found itself with a crop of new and returning series that all performed well…“it’s bittersweet, I love those shows a lot, so it was tough…While the studio was not involved in CBS’ renewal conversations, “I understood and sympathized with how difficult a decision it was to say goodbye to those,” he said.
And that’s an important if painful point. Social media lobbying matters scant little these days; there’s little demonstrable cause and effect, and particularly on platforms as skewed as X. All the more reason that it probably wasn’t the best strategy for Stapf to attribute YOUR HONOR’s uptick to this:
Indeed, Cranston has been actively promoting the Netflix run of Your Honor on social media to his millions of followers. “As we now know, that makes a huge difference,” Stapf said.
I worked directly with Cranston and his partners as he extensively promoted two Sony series he produced on his social media, Hulu’s SNEAKY PETE and AMAZON’s DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS. If you don’t remember either of them, don’t be embarrassed; they were both short-lived and far less viewed than anything like YOUR HONOR. Every conference call we had to review the audiences–or lack thereof–that they got, despite the “free promotion” Cranston’s liberal tweeting provided, was a painful reminder and reality check. A proven veteran like Stapf likely knows this to be true, and probably knows Cranston’s work well enough to know about these missteps as well. At least he should.
Netflix is a true outlier and a de facto kingmaker. The SUITS’ success story has been widely reported, and many, including moi, have noted the unique variables in algorithmic prioritization that drove its opportunities. But as has been the case with YOUR HONOR, episodes were and are available on the clawback destinations. Has any of the Netflix success actually translated back to the in-house platforms? Again, the studies exist to prove or disprove it. Universal has never disclosed how much Peacock was helped by SUITS, so this is hardly exclusive to Stapf’s sich.
That may be why at the moment the SUITS spinoff is little more than a pilot order, and despite all of these nice and timely inferences to latent success, even Stapf was forced to concede this regarding YOUR HONOR:
“We love the show, and we’re hoping that it can continue, but it’s a little too soon to know or to tell,” Stapf said, cautioning fans not to raise their expectations — at least for now. “We would like there to be a Season 3 but we’re ways away.”
It would certainly help his cause–and, indirectly, Andreeva’s–if he was able to provide some of the data points I’ve risen. His impressive colleagues could probably unearth a few more that they would have access to proprietarily were he to ask. At times like this, it’s not a bad idea to rely upon those who helped you get to the top to stay there amidst boardroom turmoil.
But you do what you think is best, David. Hopefully, it will help your case. And who knows? Maybe all of this scores some points for you with Netflix. You might find yourself needing them before long.
Until next time…