Was ‘The Last Czars’ Under Promoted on Netflix?

The Last Czars is now on Netflix around the world but the chances are you’ve probably not stumbled across the show or even seen any promotion for it. Let’s dissect what could be the reason this show was essentially sent out to die.

Although the first production date was announced for Netflix in October 2017, all things went silent as the show entered development. It wasn’t until the middle of June 2019 until Netflix quietly added a release date to the shows official Netflix page. The show was first announced by Netflix in June 2018. We wrote a post about it and were one of the few to cover it.

Netflix's inability to promote its shows is not new. Netflix's failure to promote shows such as Santa Clarita Diet and Sense8 One Day at a Time is a common reason for cancellations.

Weeks went by and promotion for the show from Netflix’s official channels never materialized. To this date, a trailer has yet to be uploaded to Netflix’s official account on YouTube.

The show wasn’t and isn’t available on the Netflix media site.

A Tweet promoting the show didn’t come until six days after the show’s release ironically on an account named “see what’s next.”

The promotion for the show in the UK, where the show is produced, seems to be limited to Ben Cartwright appearing on ITV’s Daytime TV show Lorraine on the day of release.

The show has received some promotion from news media since its release. However, it did not reach the top 10 most-watched shows in the UK the week before but fell out of the top ten the next week.

Why did the show get so little promotion? Here’s a couple of reasons.

Did the program just make no sense?

The first thing we could consider why Netflix didn’t choose to promote the show overly is the fact it could simply be a bad show.

That’s not the case however as audiences have actually rated it one of the highest debut shows of 2019. It’s currently sitting at a 7.2 on IMDb and a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Although there’s been plenty of criticism of accuracy, it’s something that was always going to be the case with a show that blended dramatization with documentary elements.

Russia also apparently wasn’t too impressed with the show either but the same thing happened with Chernobyl for HBO which only helped promote the show.

Stranger Things Thing

Netflix makes a huge excuse. It's called Stranger Things. Stranger Things was released a day following The Last Czars. You could say that it completely sapped the oxygen from the room. In this case, Netflix could have chosen to either keep Stranger Things in the future or move the show back (as it did Friday right after ST3).

What’s the answer? We don’t know, we only have the questions but just yesterday Netflix blamed too few hits as a reason for subscriber numbers slowing down. When the company doesn’t even do the bare minimum to promote its shows, is it really surprising?

Utopia TV Productions, behind the series has another Netflix project in the works.