- Netflix (NFLX) will convey real-time voting to “Star Search” and future applications.
- VP Brandon Reigg believes dwell content material will allow Netflix to win the “streamer wars.”
- Netflix makes constructive strikes, whereas NBC (CMCSA) and Paramount (PSKY) are busy with a bidding battle over Warner Bros. Discovery.
“Love Island” followers ought to brace for a distinct form of bombshell. Quickly, they are able to vote in actual time and dictate the result of episodes.
On Oct. 28, Netflix (NFLX) revealed it’s going to introduce real-time voting for one in all its standard actuality TV applications, competitors present “Star Search.”
The success of this new performance will form the way forward for actuality TV and dwell content material normally. If it is a hit, smart followers ought to look ahead to dwell voting — and different interactive options — to come back to their favourite present as nicely.
Let’s stroll by means of the specifics of this primary rollout and which applications would possibly see the characteristic first.
“It’s just a very early starting example of the ways that we think content can be more interactive over time, across devices, between TV and mobile, where a member who subscribes to Netflix can actually feel like they’re part of the story, influence the storyline, and feel immersed in that,” Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone instructed TechCrunch.
She confirmed that “Star Search” would be the subsequent program to include the characteristic.
“If you’re sitting at home watching ‘Star Search’ on your TV, you’ll be able to either on the TV or your mobile phone actually put in a vote that advances or doesn’t advance some of the contestants on the show.”
Not all viewers could also be conscious, however real-time voting has already rolled out for a cooking program as half of a bigger dwell programming push on Netflix.
Netflix VP thinks dwell content material is the longer term
Netflix boasts a ton of actuality properties, a few of you probably know, comparable to relationship present“Love Is Blind,” vogue staple “Queer Eye,” and “Is It Cake?,” the self-explanatory cooking present. The streamer additionallyproduces a slew of lesser-known dwell actuality titles, which make splendid testing grounds for brand spanking new ideas.
That is precisely what Netflix did for its new dwell voting characteristic, testing it on “Dinner Time Live with David Chang” this August, per The Verge. The transfer is the newest in a collection of dwell content material advances spearheaded by Vice President Brandon Reigg.
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“Live programming is now a major priority at the streaming giant — and Mr. Riegg, 48, sits atop the effort, making him one of the most-watched executives in the entertainment world,” Nicole Sperling wrote in her New York Instances profile of Reigg.
“[Reigg’s] growing corner of Netflix includes unscripted series, sports, documentary series, and efforts to integrate gaming technologies, which allow viewers to vote for winners of a show, into unscripted events.”
Netflix Vice President Brandon Reigg desires to convey extra dwell actuality reveals to the streaming service.
Katie Jones/Selection/Penske Media through Getty
Netflix’s high actuality reveals by means of Q2 2025:
- “Love Is Blind” (S8): 13,400,000 views
- “Million Dollar Secret” (S1): 11,100,000 views
- “Temptation Island” (S1): 10,600,000 views
- “Single’s Inferno” (S4): 8,200,000 views
- “Dubai Bling” (S3): 6,900,000 views
- “Battle Camp” (S1): 6,300,000 views
- “Selling the City” (S1): 6,100,000 views
- “With Love, Meghan” (S1): 5,300,000 views
- “Stranded with My Mother-in-Law” (S2): 5,000,000 views
- “Love Is Blind: Germany” (S1): 5,000,000 views
Supply:FlixPatrol
If Reigg has his means, real-time voting will solely be the tip of the iceberg for streaming innovation.
My greatest learn on his macro technique: Reigg is raring to check the boundaries of how a lot viewers need to work together with their dwell programming, whereas additionally feeling out the boundary between streaming and gaming.
CTO Elizabeth Stone confirmed this at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025:
“In addition to Live, Netflix is focused on real-time responsiveness for formats like its new Party Games for TV, and, eventually, podcasts, so users can engage with what is happening in the moment,” Aisha Malik writes.
Netflix is betting that Reigg’s wild laboratory, aka his dwell content material concepts, will give them a leg up within the long-running so-called “streamer wars” towards fellow actuality TV gamers Paramount, Comcast’s NBC, and Disney (DIS).
Netflix, Paramount, NBC joust over actuality TV viewers
There was once one million cable channels, every with its signature present. Now these networks need to be divided among the many streaming large boys.
For instance, followers of “Duck Dynasty”and “Storage Wars”can hold watching their favorites by buying A&E on Hulu. The rationale A&E is even out there on Hulu is that Disney owns each.
It is fairly the ask to maintain observe of which community has been devoured up by which streaming behemoth. Simply itemizing the gamers on the actuality TV desk — Disney’s Hulu, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, NBC’s Peacock, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Netflix itself — emphasizes how crowded {the marketplace} is.
Nonetheless, to distinguish itself from the pack, Netflix is doubling down on gaming.
“So we’ve got some fun living room party games launching in Q4 this year, more next year — for example, Boggle. So it’s on your living room TV screen,” Stone defined.
“You’re able to do it with friends and family locally using your mobile phone. It’s another way to think about more immersive, fun, in-the-moment content, in addition to the more traditional film and TV, which, of course, we’ll continue to hit out of the park.”
It is key to know how precisely these video games work. Basically, you pull the sport up in your front room TV, and every individual taking part makes use of their telephone as a controller of kinds to pick out solutions for trivia or make strikes in different recreation varieties.
Netflix is leaning closely on these video games and has an enormous slate of latest choices coming down the pike earlier than the top of 2025, per its information web page.
“Party Games” coming to Netflix by finish of 2025
- LEGO® Social gathering!: Sq. off towards your mates within the final LEGO occasion recreation. Compete in hilarious minigames and hunt for gold by means of themed Problem Zones.
- Boggle Social gathering: Race towards the clock to search out phrases (the longer, the higher) in a jumbled-up letter grid. Play solo or make it a celebration with as much as eight gamers.
- Pictionary: Recreation Evening: Draw ’til you drop — or one in all your mates guesses what you are sketching — on this hilarious and fast-paced spin on Mattel’s basic group recreation.
- Tetris Time Warp: Time-travel with pals to completely different eras of Tetris, from the 1984 authentic to the basic Gameboy model. Are you able to warp your solution to a high rating?
- Social gathering Crashers: Idiot Your Mates: One individual at this occasion secretly has no concept what everybody else is speaking about. Determine whose clues are fishy to unmask the crasher.
Supply: Netflix
Video games and real-time voting are two new arrows in Netflix and Reigg’s appreciable live-content quiver. Others embody:
- Needle-moving addition of vacation NFL video games
- Dwell sports activities broadcasting normally (together with boxing & fight sports activities)
- Sudden smash hits like “Squid Game: The Challenge”
The concentrate on dwell content material choices is a strategic transfer on Netflix’s half, separating it from rivals. HBO leads the status, high-concept house, however is at risk of being separated from Discovery or outright acquired.
See, Discovery merged with Warner Bros. (HBO’s guardian firm) in a transfer meant to pair its appreciable actuality choices with HBO.
That pairing could not final lengthy, as it’s beneath stress from two instructions. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav says he desires to separate HBO and Discovery once more, and Paramount and NBC are jockeying to amass WBD, both wholesale or in elements.
Netflix is betting its dwell content material plans will permit it to make strides whereas its rivals punch one another out. As soon as the mud settles, the once-little-DVD-service-that-could would possibly take the lead.
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