Stranger Things is a science horror fiction and a television series, which was created and directed by Duffer Brothers and runs on Netflix. The film is of great interest and importance to me especially the way it seamlessly weaves together the opposing qualities of comfort and fear in the 1st season (Renfro 2018). The events occur from 1983 and are quite entrancing to any viewer due to the aesthetic and familiarity of the content. For instance, the children ride on bikes to fight a monster bringing out the feeling of fear mixed with excitement. This is followed by real terror, which peeks in flashes, the alien invasion of Will, Eleven’s psychological torture, and the cruel end of Barb (Renfro 2018). Another interesting quality of this piece is the use of kids from different family backgrounds as it makes the show more relatable to different viewers. The show therefore, breaks the black family stereotype on television media by including the Lukas Sinclair family that lives a suburban life. Single family is also represented by having the character, Dustin Henderson who lives with his mother Claudia. The events occurring in the film make it thrilling to the audience of diverse culture.
Netflix media streaming service owns the production of Stranger Things, which streams it live to the audience in all parts of the world. The series is one of the company’s most important franchises due to its large audience. Stranger Things is one of the best shows in 2016 on Netflix with three seasons (Mangan 2016). Season 3 was renewed on December 1, 2017 thus the company controls its airing. Digital technology is the driving force for the video streaming and Netflix is one of the company’s in the world that have invested in this industry. Innovation is part of a long history of cultural, social, and economic transformation (Robins and Morley 2002, p. 10). The emergence of digital distribution revolution emerged as a consequence of corporate investments and aims at improving and expanding the audience access to media entertainment. Netflix has a wide audience that enjoy many of its live streams including the Stranger Things. The company airs many programs with 130 million subscribers in more than 190 countries in the world (McAlone 2018). Other shows include movies, documentaries, and television series among other.
Stranger Things has enabled Netflix to make good earnings in the streaming service by attracting many subscribers. Netflix stock has gone up while more people subscribed to the company which attributes the great performance to the series. In third quarter of 2015 the venture made about $2.15 billion which shows that the series is quite profitable (Spata 2016).
Netflix attributes the performance to the series, which has helped the company to make more money than it did before airing it. The performance was a 36 percent jump and there was greater expectation of improved performance (Spata 2016). The company focuses on producing original content making the popular movies to suffer although it manages to attract more customers (Gomez-Uribe and Hunt 2016, p. 13). The children actors in the Stranger Things are some of the youngest high earners in the television industry on the globe. According to report from Hollywood, the four main young actors earn about $30,000 for every episode in the film (McAlone 2018). Other important earnings in the fourth quarter 2018 include “Q 4 EPS (GAAP): $0.41, Q4 revenue: $3.28 billion, Q4 US subscriber growth (net additions): 1.98 million net adds, and Netflix forecast of 1.25 million, Q4 international subscriber growth (net additions): 6.36 million net adds, and Netflix forecast of 5.05 million, Q1 US subscriber growth guidance (net additions), 1.45 million net adds, versus, Q1 international subscriber growth guidance (net additions): 4.9 million net adds” (McAlone 2018)
Figure 1: Netflix stock performance
Source: https://www.pulselive.co.ke/bi/tech/tech-netflix-blew-past-subscriber-growth-targets-in-q4-and-the-stock-is-soaring-to-record-highs-nflx-id7878692.html
The cast members such as Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp each $250,000 dollars each for every episode (Loughrey 2018).
Stranger Things was created and written by the Duffer Brothers, Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen who are the executive producers. The two started making films at a young age thus became quite experienced in television by the time the idea of Stranger Things was born. The series was nominated for various awards and worn the Top 10 TV Programs of the year, best TV series, best show, best new media TV series, and best episodic drama among others (Loughrey 2018). This reveals that the producers are experienced and able to coordinate and direct the actors effectively. Levy’s 21 Laps production company facilitated its production before Netflix picked it. The series’ great reception worldwide confirms that the producers achieved their goal of promoting great entertainment to many fans.
Industrial organization of production can affect the quality of media text depending on the targeted market. The shifting media landscape calls for innovations during content production to satisfy the needs of the audience. The industry has established maxims on how screen media should be created, circulated, and consumed (Cutin, Holt, Samson 2018, p. 10). Media producers are supposed to adhere to such standards that promote quality of content. Netflix is a leading subscription video-on-demand provider interested in original productions for the audience (Hallinan, and Striphas 2016, p. 117). The quality of the media text such as the series, Stranger Thing can be affected since digital distribution revolution has changed ways of content imaginations, formulations, production, promotion, as well as packaging among others. The audience behavior keeps on changing as users gain greater access and control, thus producers must endure that the content they offer to the industry meets the clients’ needs. Dealing with the tastes of the audiences that producers have not seen or known personally requires producers to deliver refined content Adhikari et al. 2012), p. 1620). Use of new media has led to intense industry interest in finding ways of making more money by releasing videos that attract more subscriptions. Producers must think about their audience in terms of their media usage since people use it for many purposes especially with the increased internet use (Turner and Cunningham 2002, p. 31). Some producers are making and distributing their own media products on various platforms including Facebook and other socialization sites. The produced content must take into consideration.
In conclusion, the Stranger Things has been a great success for Netflix for its fame to series subscribers. The company recorded improvement in stock and monetary earnings since the production of the film. Technological innovations have led to efficient distribution of content all over the world enabling producers of the Stranger Things to have a wider audience.
References
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