OITNB hack to impact on Season 5 demand
May 10, 2017
Following the recent security breach, which saw hackers releasing all episodes of the forthcoming fifth season of Netflix’s hit series Orange is the New Black, data science company Parrot Analytics has tracked audience demand for the series in the US and around the world.
Over a seven-day period, Parrot found there was a sharp increase in demand. In the US alone, demand for the show after the breach was as much as 40 per cent of the peak demand during the series’ fourth season. By comparison, Parrot found that the trailer for the new season of Orange is the New Black released on April 11th only managed to drum up 24 per cent of the show’s Season 4 peak demand.
“The fact that stolen and leaked episodes are able to generate this much demand is significant,” said Wared Seger, CEO, Parrot Analytics. “Orange is the New Black has always been a strong performer for Netflix, although we don’t believe they will lose any subscribers, we do believe it is likely that when Season 5 launches in June, it may not generate as much demand as did the prior Seasons.”
Parrot Analytics’ Industry Data Scientist Kayla Heeds added: “The spike in demand for Orange is the New Black has behaved similarly to the typical Netflix demand binge curve: For digital original series where the entire season is released at once, we observe that they are hugely popular for two or three days before demand begins to decay exponentially. We have seen this phenomenon for every SVoD platform, be it Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or elsewhere.”
Orange is the New Black was the fourth most-popular digital original series in 2016; ahead of Stranger Things and right behind Fuller House, Gilmore Girls and the most popular title of 2016, Marvel’s Luke Cage, according to Parrot Analytics’ 2016 Global Digital Originals Report.