Netflix takes subscribers back to prison on June 6, when the second season of the acclaimed drama Orange Is The New Black debuts on the subscription streaming service. As with the first season, which debuted in June of last year, Netflix will release all 13 episodes of Orange Is The New Black Season 2 simultaneously, allowing viewers to indulge in the sort of “binge watching” beloved by Netflix enthusiasts.
For fans of the incarcerated-women drama who can’t wait another three-and-a-half months, Netflix put a short trailer on line, that may or may not drop hints about what is to come in the second go-round for Orange Is The New Black . Check it out below.
Netflix doesn’t sell advertising and relies on its subscribers monthly fees for its revenue — a fee currently set at $7.99 per month for unlimited streaming of TV shows and movies, though Netflix recently said that a change in that price structure may be coming. But because it doesn’t need to impress advertisers, Netflix doesn’t announce “ratings,” or how many viewers have watched a particular series or movie.
“Plus, measurement over the kind of time period used for ratings makes no sense in the on demand universe,” said a Netflix spokesperson. “We don’t mind whether people watch a series in the first week, the third month, or the fourth year.”
In other words, there’s no way for the general public to know how popular Orange Is The New Black actually was with viewers. But obviously Netflix must believe the original series is an asset, or they would not have brought it back for Season Two.
The service reeled in more than 11 million new subscribers last year, giving it a total expected to top 50 million by the end of March. In one poll, almost one of three Netflix subscribers who actually watched one of the service’s original series in its entirety said that Orange Is The New Black was their favorite. That’s more than the Netflix Emmy-winning series House of Cards , the political drama whose second season premiered on Netflix yesterday.
Other Netflix original series include the revived comedy Arrested Development and the Norweigian-produced gangster “dramedy” Lilyhmmer starring Steven Van Zandt of HBO’s The Sopranos.
Netflix also had good news for Star Wars fans this week. The sixth and so-called “lost season” of the animated series The Clone Wars , cancelled after five seasons by Cartoon Network, will be shown on Netflix instead. All 13 episodes of the Star Wars series hit Netflix on March 7.
While there are no available ratings for Orange Is The New Black , critics went wild for the show . TV Guide called it “ a eureka moment ” for Netflix, while The Los Angeles Times rated it one the top 10 shows of 2013.