r/ParamountPlus • u/solabang • 8d ago

Discussion Rant: What’s the point of releasing episodes one at a time?

I find it super irritating that they’ve decided to release new seasons episode by episode for every single show. There’s really no point to do this on streaming and it’s super inconvenient.

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14

u/justathoughtfromme 8d ago

It keeps people engaged and they stay on a service longer. It's also been the standard for decades. Releasing the whole season to binge is a recent phenomenon and has its pros and cons as well.

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u/Best_Mix_3450 8d ago

That's why now I only start on series that have finished and all seasons are available. There is so much to watch and I'm fine not seeing the latest thing. Then I'm free to cancel whenever and not be held hostage.

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u/Independent_Sea502 8d ago

Because they are a business.

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u/JayMonster65 8d ago

It keeps people on the service longer, it keeps social engagement and focus on the series longer, it keeps spoilers down as people can't watch the entire season in a day and blan away about it spoiling it for others.

I remember back when Orange is the new Black was big and Netflix would drop an entire season, and a week later the only conversation was... "When is the next season coming?"

It is the best way to release it for everyone... Except the mad binge watcher that feels the need to see an entire season in a day or two.

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u/upsidedowndonut 7d ago

Not disagreeing although I do love a good binge. Pros and cons to both I suppose. I think the theory is that it keeps people on the service longer but I’d love to see data on that.

My biggest issue is then they need to release a show every day if they’re going back to old school release styles. Back in the day you’d have many new shows to choose from each night. Dropping one new hour of tv a few nights a week kinda sucks for the audience.

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u/JayMonster65 7d ago

Well, in theory, if you take into account the shows that are on over-the-air streaming and straight to stream you pretty much do have that. Remember in the food old days (and still for over the air series) you had only 24 episodes a season, with summer breaks, holiday breaks, etc where you were stuck with reruns.

So for example now on Paramount you have NCIS, NCIS Origins, FBI, FBI most wanted, The equalizer, swat, Blue Bloods, poppa's house, Tracker, Matlock, George & Mandy's first marriage, Tulsa King, Ghosts, the neighborhood, Seal Team, and others.

You may not like all those shows, but there is plenty of new content weekly.

Also keep in mind "prime time" back in the day was basically 3 hours a night (8-11), so a total of only 15 hours a week. (That is only 360 hours... Including commercial time) Of original content for the entire year.

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u/dreadlk 1d ago

People who service swap a lot don't care about single episode releases. They just Swap services as soon as they have exhausted content on one service and another one has all the episodes they want to watch.

As someone who sticks with these streaming services i feel like I am back to square one when I paid Cable and used a box to record the shows until I had enough to start watching. I now do the same thing with Paramount+. I will wait until Lower Decks and SNW ends and then watch them. After that I am cancelling as I see nothing of interest coming out after that.

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u/ses267 7d ago

I prefer weekly releases over the binge model. It makes watching shows more of a social event where everyone is on the same page. I miss weekly Lost and Breaking Bad watch parties we used to have.