With the fall TV season upon us, it’s hard to tell which shows will have viewers coming back for more. While shows like Empire and Scandal are hits on the night they air and for a whole weekend afterwards, other shows have longer lives—not to mention gain a following —with on-demand viewing. Comcast’s Xfinity On Demand team did a little digging and found that there are a few characters that make shows a success on their VOD platform. Their top five picks for fall VOD victory?
- Ash vs. Evil Dead, Starz
- Bastard Executioner, FX
- Blindspot, NBC
- Quantico, ABC
- Scream Queens, Fox
A few things attract the VOD crowd, according to Xfinity’s research:
Time Slot: Sunday shows tend to do well on VOD because no one can keep up with all the different things airing at all the same time on the school night. While the living room is taken over by NFL football or whatever big event’s on HBO, Quantico will surely be missed during its appointed time, but will probably be popular later in the week. Same goes for random shows on Saturdays. Starz insists on Ash vs. Evil Dead during the weekend, but chances are its fan base will be catching up after its airing.
Demo: Xfinity On Demand viewing skews younger, particularly on X1, where on demand use is 33% higher, according to XOD. So a show like Scream Queens should draw diverse millennial viewers.
Track Record: Kurt Sutter’s and FX’s Bastard Executioner, ABC’s “Shonda-like” Quantico, and Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens all have benefited from social marketing. Scream Queens has generated nearly 400,000 Facebook likes.
Genre: XOD reports that their viewers have mature tastes, as seen by last year’s most popular time-shifted programs like How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, Revenge, Blacklist,Homeland, and 24: Live Another Day. The Walking Dead, iZombie, Vikings and Game of Thrones also top the list. By genre alone Ash vs. Evil Dead, Bastard Executioner, Blindspot and Quanitco should top the time-shifted viewing lists.
Early Premiere: Bastard Executioner premieres early in the season, like Sons of Anarchy on FX last year. This way XOD says it can “get out in front of the big wave of broadcast premieres at the end of the month.”