When Stranger Things first premiered in 2016, Netflix was still courting new subscribers with splashy original projects that were meant to have broad audience appeal. The company had solidified itself as a major player in the streaming wars with massive hits like House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and a collection of live-action Marvel series. The shows were all very different, but they each felt like part of an ambitious plan to establish Netflix as the gravitational center of a new pop cultural era.<\/p>\n
Those big, watercooler tentpole projects made Netflix feel like a platform worth subscribing to because of how large they loomed in the public consciousness. Especially in its early seasons, Stranger Things was thrilling to watch as a new sci-fi \/ horror series steeped in nostalgia. But it was also fascinating to see the show become a global phenomenon that dominated online discourse and inspired other studios to tell more stories set in the \u201980s.<\/p>\n
Though Netflix has had a number of other massive hits since Stranger Things, it has often felt like the company is thinking differently about its path to continued success. It\u2019s no longer reporting its quarterly subscriber numbers<\/a>, and a combination of price hikes<\/a> and new ad-supported tiers<\/a> have become key parts of its economic growth. Even as Netflix starts rolling out Stranger Things\u2019 final season this week, a three-part event spread out over the rest of the year, it feels like tentpoles \u2014 moments that are supposed to capture and sustain everyone\u2019s attention \u2014 aren\u2019t as critical to the streamer\u2019s big-picture strategy anymore.<\/p>\n As big as Stranger Things has been in the past, the hype around the show\u2019s fifth and final season has been relatively subdued for a handful of reasons. For one, the competition is fiercer; more streaming platforms have come into existence and they have had ample time to capture audiences\u2019 imaginations with new genre series of their own. Though Stranger Things\u2019 first two seasons came out in quick succession, Netflix began releasing subsequent episodes at much, much slower pace. The series will have been airing for almost a decade when the first part of season 5 drops on November 26th, and many viewers will probably find themselves a little hazy on how the Duffer Brothers\u2019 story got to this point.<\/p>\n Netflix might have been concerned about Stranger Things losing momentum between seasons back when the company was more focused on dropping entire seasons of a show in one fell swoop. But through its shift toward more staggered releases, particularly for its most notable series, Netflix has signaled that it\u2019s aiming for a different kind of success.<\/p>\n Netflix knows that people are still going to watch Stranger Things 5 and stick around for at least a couple of months to see how things shake out for the Hawkins gang. There\u2019s also going to be an animated spinoff series for folks who aren\u2019t ready to leave Stranger Things behind. But Netflix has also cultivated more IP with fandoms of their own outside of Stranger Things, and the streamer understands that those eyeballs can be kept long after the Duffer Brothers have gone<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though every streamer wants to make bona fide hits that drive subscriber sign-ups, Netflix has gotten heavily into the business of launching franchises that can coexist without seeming to overlap all that much. That\u2019s exactly the vibe you get from the company\u2019s annual Tudum showcase, which frames all of its shows from Bridgerton to Wednesday to Emily in Paris as equally important parts of its future plans.<\/p>\n Rather than launching massive tentpole originals designed to get everyone watching the same thing, Netflix has invested more of its energy into projects that feel more targeted to specific audiences, like fans of anime and live sports. That might be part of why the company spent so much time dabbling in mobile gaming before its recent shift to prioritize TV-focused party gaming<\/a>. Those dabblings don\u2019t mean that Netflix isn\u2019t thinking about which of its many upcoming series might be \u201cthe next Stranger Things.\u201d But they do suggest that the company sees tentpole shows as just one of many irons it needs to keep in the fire.<\/p>\n Netflix\u2019s head content officer Bela Bajaria said as much earlier this year<\/a> during a presentation where she noted that the platform now has somewhere north of 700 million subscribers. With that many viewers, the company can\u2019t bank on individual shows or movies landing with everyone, and it makes much more sense to cater to specific niches. As long as you\u2019re paying, Netflix doesn\u2019t really care whether you\u2019ve signed up for the English-language Squid Game remake, a Little House on the Prairie reboot, or WWE. All of the programming serves the same bottom line, and the main goal is to keep viewers watching.<\/p>\n Netflix is absolutely going to be paying attention to the ways its subscriber numbers fluctuate in the coming weeks as Stranger Things 5 arrives in waves. A sharp decline once the season is through in the new year might sound some internal alarms. But whether or not Stranger Things 5 is as big as Netflix is building it up to be, its conclusion marks the end of an era for the streamer \u2014 and what\u2019s next looks very different. But what\u2019s much more likely is that the show comes and goes with a moderate amount of fanfare, and then Netflix sits back to think about what to do when one of its upcoming projects sticks.<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Report<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n\n