Streaming shows: Game of Thrones top ‘franchisable’ rankings but Seinfeld lacks ‘longevity’

HBO’s Game of Thrones has 227 times more potential for spin-off shows than the average series, while Seinfeld, recently expensively acquired by Netflix, has only half the longevity of Friends, which the streaming giant lost to Warnermedia, or The Office, which will move from Netflix to NBCUniversal’s Peacock when the former deal expires, according to Parrot Analytics. 

Parrot Analytics, which measures the popularity of streaming shows based on ‘daily expressions of demand’ in over 200 countries, based on data from social media, fan sites, peer-to-peer protocols and file-sharing platforms, demonstrated new data insights revealing series with the highest levels of franchisability and longevity at a presentation for the board of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences held in New York on Monday. 

According to Parrot Analytics, franchisability indicates how much potential for franchises and spin-offs a specific title has based on its longevity – i.e., how well audience demand has held up over time – and its adoption – i.e., how many people have expressed demand for the show – indexed to the franchisability of the average title. Longevity indicates how well demand is maintained over time. 

Game of Thrones topped Parrot’s list of the top 10 most franchisable shows, followed by The Big Bang Theory, The Flash and The Walking Dead. 

Seinfeld, on the other hand, had only 1.3 times the longevity of the average show, compared with 3.1 times for Friends and 2.5 times for The Office. Parks and Recreation, with 2.4 times the longevity of the average show, also beat Seinfeld in the rankings. 

“Losing the classics means potentially losing subscribers, and Netflix can’t simply commission a beloved decades-old sitcom,” said Parrot Analytics CEO Wared Seger. 

“Instead, the strategy was to look for other titles to fill the gap and buying the rights to Seinfeld for US$500M was designed to do just that. However, according to our data, Seinfeld has about half the longevity of Friends and The Office. It is still in demand, but its demand has been maintained at a lower level compared to these two shows.”