Outlander season 4: Three unconventional ways to bring in new viewers
The thing with Outlander is that in terms of commercial success alone, it’s doing more than fine. It’s a huge hit that’s probably going to get at least two more seasons at Starz if not more. Yet, don’t you want the series to be as successful as possible? More viewers/subscribers for Starz in turn means potentially more seasons and a larger budget for the series to work with. This is why today, CarterMatt is trying to get a little creative in thinking about three more unconventional things that Starz could do to help promote the series further. Some of these may be based on past network strategies, but they are still somewhat outside of the traditional methods of promotion.
1. Release the first episode of season 4 for free – You can either do it before or after the episode airs; doing it before would actually take Starz a step further than Showtime, who often does choose to do this with the premiere episodes of their series as a way to make them appeal to new viewers. Typically, the loss of live viewers for the premiere is offset by the potential gain of subscribers you can get from someone new being hooked.
2. Have Starz do a free preview weekend leading up to the premiere – This is something that premium cable networks do occasionally, and for a show like Outlander they do find challenges when it comes to viewers of other networks. They can’t really syndicate the show to an FX or an AMC due to the nudity in some of the scenes; therefore, if Starz wants to promote the series to new viewers, they need to figure out a way in which to do so internally. One of the best ways to make that happen seems to be having a free weekend for Starz itself at around the time they run some sort of past Outlander marathon. Viewers often don’t want to shell out money for something unless they know that they like it.
3. Look more at other streaming services – While it may not happen just because of Starz’s own interest in keeping viewers watching their own streaming service, it could prove interesting if they decided to give just the first season over to a Netlfix or a Hulu. See if they can get viewers hooked on one of those platforms and then have them make the jump over to Starz to watch the rest. One of the few premium cable series currently on the air to do something similar is Showtime’s Shameless over on Netflix, and we’re not even saying that Outlander needs to go so far as to have multiple seasons out there.
Related – How the show can build the best love story possible for Roger and Bree
What could Starz do in order to make Outlander season 4 as successful as possible in your mind? Share below!
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