Good news for binge watchers: Netflix Canada recently added CBC’s X Company and Strange Empire to their lineup, joining fellow CBC mates Murdoch Mysteries, Heartland, Republic of Doyle and more to the service’s ever-rotating and growing lineup.
The shows not only get exposure to a broader audience through browsing plus Netflix’s superior recommendation engine, but CBC gets an additional revenue stream from Netflix licensing on top of advertising, iTunes sales, and selling their kidneys.
World War II spy drama X Company is currently working on a second season, so a Netflix catch up may boost the future audience for the show. It will be interesting to see if there is a measurable effect, or if once a Netflix viewer always a Netflix viewer — if the audience simply waits for season two to appear on the service. Best case scenario for CBC is audiences find it so compelling they want to watch as it airs instead and binge watch later.
Dark, female-driven western Strange Empire was cancelled after one season, but other than some last-minute action that would have set up a second season, the first feels mostly like a satisfyingly complete mini series.
While CBC keeps most of their series available online, the Netflix user experience is vastly superior to the glitchy, repetitive-advertising-filled network website players. Netflix also captures an audience who may not watch CBC, search for CBC’s website, or even have heard of CBC’s shows.
Licensing agreements have expiration dates, so Netflix content comes and goes, but audiences should have plenty of time to discover X Company and Strange Empire and see what they’ve missed — for good or for bad — or relive the experience at their own pace.
Don’t look for Bell, Shaw or Rogers series on the streaming service any time soon — they want you to sign up for their own streaming services, CraveTV or shomi, instead.
I gave up on watching videos on CBC long ago. Their video player always glitches and quits working.
I tried again recently thinking it had to be better now and … nope.