How Amazon’s ‘Reacher’ Defies Demographic Stereotypes With Cross-Genre Appeal | Chart
The term “four quadrant” — used to refer to films that appealed to audiences of both men and women over and under 25 — is considered a tad outdated. The American population has become much more diverse and fragmented since the phrase started picking up steam in the ‘80s and ‘90s. These days, the thinking is that these basic demographic categories are no longer adequate for describing the kind of cultural reach a given movie or show needs to succeed.
So, how do we measure mass appeal in a more complicated world? At Ranker, we have found that the only truly helpful predictor of what a given person will enjoy watching is what they’ve enjoyed watching in the past. In our view, a “four quadrant” or “tentpole” title, whether a movie or a TV show, appeals to people with diverse pop culture tastes and preferences, not to people across a few overgeneralized groups.
And when you take off the demographic blinders, you might be surprised by the titles that really have this kind of cross-genre appeal: shows like Amazon Prime Video’s “Reacher.”
Reacher Is a Stealth Mega-Hit
The first season of “Reacher” premiered back in February of 2022 to relatively little fanfare. But while many critics ignored the show, it became the first Amazon original series to top Nielsen’s SVOD ratings the week after its premiere. “Reacher” also shot near the top of some competitive Ranker lists.
The consensus among fans was that “Reacher” wasn’t just one of the best new shows of the year, but one of the best action shows of all time.
Last year, the year that perhaps represented the very peak of “Peak TV,” “Reacher” ended up at #4 on our list of The Best New TV Shows Of 2022, behind only “House of the Dragon,” “Severance,” and “Andor” — all shows that got a significant boost from critics. Even more impressively, it’s currently beating out “24” and “The Last of Us” to earn the #3 spot on The Best Action TV Shows, an all-time list with nearly 50,000 votes, and only climbing higher as the show’s second season arrives.
The Action-Heavy Series Has Cross-Genre Appeal
Why is this success surprising? Thanks in part to the old-fashioned “four quadrant” mindset, which sometimes encourages us to indulge in stereotypical thinking. We don’t usually expect action titles to have mass appeal. For example, one common line of thinking around why “Titanic” was such a hit was that it deftly blended romance — supposedly a genre enjoyed exclusively by women — and action — supposedly only enjoyed by men. It’s easy to write off a show like “Reacher” as a “dude show” with zero crossover appeal.
But when you forget about the demographic information that’s supposed to tell us what people like to watch and focus on what people actually like to watch, you see that “Reacher” appeals to fans of virtually every television genre. We know that because we used Ranker’s psychographic interests platform, Ranker Insights, to look at the other shows that “Reacher” fans are likelier to watch. What we found was that “Reacher” attracts fans of a broad spectrum of titles — and that action shows represent just a fraction of them.
Action shows — including network and cable series like “The Blacklist” and “Shooter” as well as fellow streaming originals like “The Night Agent” and “Slow Horses” — make up just 13% of the total number of shows that have an Affinity with “Reacher.” The plurality of shows that share fans with “Reacher” are dramas, an admittedly general category that features historical miniseries like “Chernobyl,” neo-Westerns like “Yellowstone,” and courtroom thrillers like “The Lincoln Lawyer.” But the list is filled out by Marvel superhero shows like “Moon Knight,” fantasy juggernauts like “The Witcher,” and comedies like “Wednesday” and “Ted Lasso.”
“Reacher” Isn’t Just Popular With Amazon Subscribers
But perhaps more importantly for Amazon, “Reacher” doesn’t just reach fans of all genres — it reaches subscribers to all platforms.
“Reacher” has successfully broken out of the Amazon original silo, with 84% of the shows that share fans with the action/thriller available on other streamers. Many of these shows originally premiered on broadcast and cable networks and have been placed into the platforms where they now stream, so it’s also possible that a good portion of viewers are being pulled from linear TV audiences. These findings suggest that “Reacher” is so universally appealing that it could be used to conquer subscribers from other streamers.
While you may not hear the term “four quadrant” itself all that often anymore, the temptation to rely on the stereotypical logic behind it is still sometimes hard to resist. For people in the entertainment industry, the issue isn’t that this mode of thinking is outdated, necessarily — it’s that it’s inaccurate, causing you to underestimate the appeal of some titles and overestimate the appeal of others. When you have the right data, you find sleeper hits like “Reacher” less surprising.
Ryan Mach is a content marketing manager at Ranker, a WrapPRO partner. Ranker is a source of crowdsourced rankings on the internet, where millions of people come to voice their opinions on their favorite movies, TV shows, celebrities, and more. Visit Ranker Insights for more unique information about any audience or to contact us for more information.
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