Watching Web Series

Born from a desire for creative freedom, web series often circumvent screen industry gatekeepers and attract smaller, niche audiences; but fewer views do not necessarily make the format, or its audience engagement, less valuable. This book looks behind the scenes to uncover how and why audiences engaged with nine Australian web series released between 2020 and 2023. Interviews with web series producers reveal their motivations, audience acquisition and maintenance strategies, funding methods, and platform specific approaches. These first-hand accounts are then compared with viewership metrics and the content of audience commentary, resulting in the illumination of social, cultural, and industrial values of audience engagement with these innovative productions.

This book identifies key factors that influence audience behaviours such as perceived authenticity, platform choice, and the types, forms, and costs of engaging with web series. These factors are considered with respect to online community building, relationships between creators and audiences, and commercial uses of the format, resulting in the creation of a typology of web series audiences. Readers benefit from understanding the value and characteristics of each type of viewer across a diverse range of examples featuring differing audience demographics, zero to over $1 million budgets, and platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok.

Vibrant narratives are used to convey each series’ backstory, providing an informative and engaging reading experience for screen industry practitioners, marketing and broadcast professionals, and aspiring filmmakers. Academics and students in the fields of media studies, audience engagement, screen production, creative labour and entrepreneurship, social media, and algorithmic culture will also benefit from this research.