The announcement that with the sixth season of ‘Cobra Kai’, Netflix would experiment with a new format when launching its series makes two things clear: on the one hand, the platform refuses to abandon the tradition of binge-watching. On the other hand, you are well aware that there is some element of “wasting” of your most potent properties, and you want to put a stop to that feeling. Solution: the always gentle “middle street.”
‘Cobra Kai’ in three
The final season of’Cobra Kai ‘, the popular sequel to ‘Karate Kid’ that became one of the platform’s first flagship series, will be broadcast in an unprecedented way for Netflix: fifteen episodes divided into three blocks of five (which will be broadcast, respectively, on July 18, November 28, and on a still unknown date in 2025). This will prolong the conversation over time and the expectation around this final season.
Experimentation with the parts
This new formula could mean that Netflix is experimenting. Lately, it has announced series that will follow this formula, such as the third season of ‘The ‘ridgertons’or, previously, the sixth season of ‘The Crown’, which, for the first time in its history, was released in two parts. But the bet on ‘Cobra Kai’ is more exaggerated: between the two parts of the sixth of ‘The Crown’ there was only a month, but between the first and the third of the final of ‘Cobra Kai’ there is a minimum of half a year from separation.
Even when
It is unlikely that Netflix will abandon the binge-watching formula or, at most, opt for splitting the seasons (note: the last one of ‘Cobra Kai’ is longer than usual, with fifteen chapters). Not only is it one of its hallmarks, but its viewers have become accustomed to having the complete seasons and doing their viewing at their own pace. Can this formula of splitting seasons work against you then? It could be that the third part of ‘The Witcher’ was released in two parts and coincided with a 30% decrease in its audience, according to some studies.
Problems
The main problem that Netflix has to face with this point of view is that not all series are designed with this division in mind. Perhaps ‘Cobra Kai’ was, but many viewers complained when the fourth season of ‘You’, broadcast in spring 2023, was divided into two parts that clearly had not been intended for it. With the division, not only did a cliffhanger not planned by the scriptwriters appear, but a build-up of tension was ruined due to an unforeseen pause.
Keep attention
When Netflix first proposed this model with series like ‘House of Cards’ or ‘Orange Is the New Black’, the platform business was not so firmly rooted in social networks, the internet, and word of mouth. The evolution of consumption has meant that the net number of viewers is no longer as important as talking about a series for weeks: a series like ‘X-Men 97’, on Disney+ and broadcast weekly, would not have been able to generate as much interest if he hadn’t let each episode breathe, letting fans unravel his winks and comment on their findings. Thanks to this, it has given its audience time to grow.
Series that are reborn
And linked to that phenomenon, we have the way in which many series grow as the weeks go by. For example, ‘Separation’ would have gone completely unnoticed on Apple TV+ with a Netflix-style broadcast. But week by week, word of mouth grew, and viewers commented on the enigmas of the series. It is very possible that notable series that appeared on Netflix, such as ‘1899’ or ‘File 81, would have had a more successful career if they had been allowed to grow episode by episode.
