First they decide on the objective of the survey. What do they want to know and what do they intend to do with it? Usually something triggers it and in this case, it was likely the loud complaints by normally excited fans that was co-signed by the television critics. I mentioned before that they have strong analytics and they know what percentage of fans subscribe and unsubscribe and when. Maybe they saw a change (in the wrong direction) in this case. They monitor social media so they get the gist of what’s going on.
My guess is they most certainly targeted a certain demographic (Female, age, strong viewer and problematic subscriber) but it is hard for them to get at some people because they need the email address. They have it for direct subscribers but for Comcast users or Amazon viewers, they would have to pay for that list. And even then, if the subscription is in the husband’s name, for example, then they might not know if there is a female viewer.
I may ask my friend in Market Research who is also an Outlander fan what she thinks.
Some of the questions seem pretty straight forward but it’s interesting that the areas they covered include characters and how you rate them for books that have been around for 20 years. Not only did they ask book changes but whether you liked them.
But some are the next level down and surprised me a bit
Acting ability-was that the real problem? Or just one problem that was highlighted because they got rid of the spirit of the book and didn’t focus on J/C story. Do you mean to tell me that we’re the only ones who think Sophie’s delivery is monotone?
My hope is that Sam is not hanging around LA just for MPC launch but that he (and Cait) are actually pushing for some changes and gathering more info to support that. For a company that prides itself on analytics, data speaks.
If they get consistent feedback that Jamie and Claire should be the center and stop trying to create a false equivalence with Roger and Bree, then that is yet another co-sign to the critics and social media feedback. If they hear how show Roger is even more unlikable than book Roger and they propped up a toxic relationship, they make some adjustments. Or if people point out that small book changes are good, and sometimes very good (Murtagh), but wasting whole episodes on Frank and Laoghaire and a priest not only do not add value, they take away value.
And I hope they hear in bold how dropping the birth scene with J/C and Bree and leaving no space for Jamie and Bree to really talk was downright criminal and IMO, the worst script decision made in four seasons.
There’s a metric that many companies use called NPS. (Net Promoter Score). You have likely participated in a quick survey in your daily lives that says would you recommend this product or service to someone else? (This is different than when you are asked if that customer service rep answered your problem. That is called transactional NPS, the bigger question is situational NPS.) And while they may not be asking this exact question, I bet they can extrapolate by the social media activity.
I’m glad they are doing it. Somebody cares about what happened in Season 4 and methinks it might be two new producers.
I suffered through the Mary and Blake nonsense to listen to this after seeing an anon who said it was interesting. My comments will be in italics. I now remember why I stopped listening to their podcast after S1. Mary really annoyed me in this particular podcast. I also recognize when a New England person with a thick accent turns it up for effect and Blake does that from time to time. I actually agreed with a few things DG said (gasp).
The timing of the interview is probably a few weeks ago, she had not heard about Albrecht resigning.
Mary introduced it as the most popular show on Starz (um, wrong. Power has better ratings.) And also a great adaptation of DOA. (no comment).
Before I summarize the whole thing, the one thing that jumped out at me was her saying she had not seen script outlines when Cait said she had at least a month or more ago. DG said script outlines are usually sent to her, Starz and Sony for feedback before they start the white page production script. I find this very interesting in light of the detailed survey that they sent out. Are they comparing the responses with how the outlines are? Also, remind ourselves to look at the dates of the white page production draft.
DG also said that prep for S5 would include technical reconnaissance and finding locations which is done after the story is broken. This is about 60 producers and people from various crews within production visiting location sets to plan their lighting, building, etc. David Brown has left so there will be a new head of production. Writers can go but are not required to. (Is this why Cait said they are due back next week? Are they participating in this too?) DG said as far as she knows they are in the final stages of breaking into scripts.
Back to the interview:
-what is she looking forward to the most in S5. 1. The big thing that happens to Roger and 2. How Jamie deals with trying to build his community,keep his family safe, build his house and deal with the Regulators and when he reveals his true loyalty.
-Favorite part of S4 Jamie meeting Bree. She also liked 406 (Blood of my Blood)
-She didn’t answer what she missed from book “I don’t keep score” She did say sometimes she says to them “why would you do it your way when everyone was expecting something else.”
-She was the one who suggested they bring Murtagh into the Regulator story, it also helped tell the background of the whole movement. Their first two drafts of the exposition were confusing and not logical.
-Blake asked about the music changes. She loved Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall. She said America the Beautiful was a bold artistic choice that Matt was excited about but she warned him half would love it and half wouldn’t (I remember Cait saying they didn’t know that they were going to put music over their acting and she sounded annoyed by it.)
Matt/Toni versus RDM: A showrunner imparts their personality and imprints it into the atmosphere into the writer’s room. RDM had a small, tightly knit team with the same vision. M/T have 10 writers and that’s a lot of different visions and takes on the characters. Sometimes this is reflected in when you see a character who seems to bury something inate to who the character is or they take a step back in an episode. (I thought that was a very interesting statement.) It’s a slightly less tight knit. She prefers the smaller group.
I saw someone earlier today give a summary of exactly what she said about Sam and Cait being producers and she said it was very good. They will have equal voice in how their characters are portrayed and nobody knows J/C better than Sam and Cait
Mary and Blake brought up Rankin is wonderful but referenced book versus show Roger. DG said that is what happens when you leave in book speeches but take out book context, it makes him look bad and abrupt when he isn’t. She said if you take out the context, you can’t leave the speech verbatim from the book. She said you can’t hear what he’s thinking. (Same problem we saw with Claire on the journey to the Mohawk.)
They talked about Sophie (Mary and Blake also praised her to high heaven) and mentioned the fans thought chemistry between LJG and Bree was better than Broger.
Then Mary pissed me off by complaining about fans being overly critical about wigs, pacing, etc. (Get off your fake bubbly high horse Mary, in the Season 1 podcast, Blake was critical in almost every episode about something. It is people like you that make this fandom challenging. I swear I was waiting for her to use the divisive “true fan” comment.)
DG said sometimes changes are made like the bear scene where she doesn’t necessary like it but she understands it. She called her books long but tightly structured (ha!)
When asked about Albrecht she said TV is funny that even good shows need someone to support it but that the head of Starz TV programming is a big supporter. (I think this woman was honored by using her name for the author of the book Roger reads about Fraser’s Ridge. Plus Parnell at Sony is a fan, it seems).
That was it. As I said, I think it is interesting that Cait (and Sam too, I would assume) has seen outlines but DG hasn’t combined with the survey timing is intrigues me.
Thanks for the summary and suffering through DG (and Mary and Blake by the sound of it)!
“Why would you do it your way when everyone was expecting something else.” Sometimes things are that simple and I have to wonder why. Those egos are real.
She has basically pointed out the bad characterisation that we’ve complained about all along.
I wonder if they hired so many writers because they only had the budget to hire inexperienced ones and they can’t be entrusted to more than 1.5 episodes each. Plus that’s the calibre of writers they can realistically get to work under Toni Graphia.
I do hope this interview was done weeks ago otherwise it doesn’t bode well for filming to start soon. Speaking of time, they’ve been prepping for S5 for a year so something must’ve been written. It means it took the tidal wave of bad critical reviews and fan response to stop them in their tracks. These are professionals. So they thought there was nothing wrong when they watched their own final product? That’s some next level blindness and arrogance.
Tori