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After renewing essentially everything from when it started making originals in 2013 until it cancelled Marco Polo after two seasons at the end of 2016, Netflix has started being a lot more judicious when it comes to determining which of their series will get another season.
Bloodline, Sense8 and The Get Down — all of which were cancelled by Netflix during the first half of this year — were $100 million-plus projects whose viewership couldn’t justify their huge budgets. Girlboss, which Netflix axed in June, was more modestly budgeted, but the series failed to get much critical or social-media attention and didn’t bring a significant geographic or demographic niche onto the service.
Netflix’s two most recent originals to step up to the pass/fail mark make for an interesting contrast because they’re both 10-episode, beautifully shot, Fincheresque, one-word-titled, ensemble psychodramas built, respectively, around a central married couple with issues:
- Gypsy, which premiered at the end of June, stars Naomi Watts as a Manhattan psychologist who starts stalking her patients and cheating on her lawyer husband (Billy Crudup).
- Ozark, which premiered in late July, is about a money-laundering financial advisor (Jason Bateman) and his cheating wife (Laura Linney) moving to rural Missouri.
Netflix recently renewed the well-reviewed Ozark for a second season but cancelled the more lukewarmly received Gypsy. The reviews were a likely factor in both cases, but Netflix doesn’t provide viewing metrics that would show whether one show found more of an audience than the other. Netflix has, however, cited Google Trends data in its financial reporting to characterize the popularity of its shows, and Google searches provide some insight into why Ozark made the cut and Gypsy did not.
'Ozark' Has Been a Modest Summer Hit
Following the media bonanzas earlier this year around Marvel’s Iron Fist, 13 Reasons Why and the second season of Master of None, Netflix has had a relatively lower-key summer, which is generally the least watched part of the TV year. House of Cards premiered its fifth season in late May and Orange Is the New Black premiered its fifth season in early June, but both are down in Google traffic, attention in the entertainment media and — presumably — viewing metrics from their previous seasons. GLOW, the ’80s ladies wrestling dramedy, was a modest hit in late June, and Netflix has already renewed it for a second season.
Gypsy, which premiered the weekend after GLOW, had a long Independence Day weekend with no competition from series launches on Netflix or other networks and streaming services, but it still failed to make much of an impression. As you can see from the chart above, Gypsy never broke free from GLOW, which was critical darling but hardly a breakout hit. Ozark, which premiered in late July, hasn’t been a breakthrough either, but it has driven more Google search traffic than Gypsy and nearly matched GLOW‘s peak, decay and overall impact.
'GLOW' Beats 'Gypsy' All Over the Map
To the extent that Netflix views the female-starring GLOW and Gypsy as shows vying for the same female audience, GLOW has been the better U.S. performer in nearly the entire country. The margins are widest in midwestern states like Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota, where the wrestling-themed GLOW has outgunned Gypsy‘s more limited Upper East Side, latte-sipping sensibilities. (One of Gypsy‘s lead characters actually works in a Manhattan coffee shop.)
'Ozark' Is a Solid Red State Performer
Although GLOW and Ozark have had similar trajectories and similar search traffic over the last few months, they’ve done it in different places. In electoral map terms, GLOW has done generally better in the blue states and Ozark better in the red states. Ozark over-performed in the states around Missouri, where the series is set, and in the South.
Given that Netflix almost certainly has better household penetration in the more affluent East Coast and West Coast markets than it does is in the South and in the Lower Midwest, Ozark — a sort of Breaking Bad: Missouri Edition — gives the service an original series to drive the discussion and add subscribers in markets markets where it has relatively lower household penetration.
'Ozark' Beats 'Gypsy' in Global Markets
Netflix expanded last year from 60 to 180 countries and essentially became a worldwide (minus China) streaming service. Although roughly half of its 104 million worldwide subscribers are in the United States, that new worldwide footprint has made every show a potential hit or miss in markets as different as Norway, Saudi Arabia and Kenya.
Ozark, with elements like drugs, money and bursts of violence, has had more of an international appeal than Gypsy. Although Gypsy has performed relatively better in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, where star Naomi Watts is relatively better known, Ozark has been a bigger hit in the European Union and in the Middle East. (Oddly, given the fact that Ozark involves a Mexican drug cartel, Ozark and Gypsy have done roughly even search traffic in Mexico.)
'Ozark' Has Held Up Well Into August
Ozark has performed well against Netflix’s other late summer originals Friends From College, Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later and Atypical. Friends From College, which stars an ensemble cast of TV knows like Keegan-Michael Key and Cobie Smulders, premiered to mediocre reviews the week before Ozark and was dead on arrival in terms of its search traffic. Wet Hot and Atypical, which both premiered in early August, have done relative better.
Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider and is also a contributing writer for Playboy. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.
