With just a few days to go until a hotly contested slate of U.S. elections, Netflix is getting out the vote — but not in the way you might think. A new feature coming to the streaming platform will allow it to collect live votes from viewers during reality competition shows and other programs that feature elements of audience participation.
Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s Chief Technology Officer, announced the new feature during the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Stone said that her team is increasing its investment in interactive and immersive experiences, beginning with the addition of real-time voting.
As Netflix’s flagship franchises have veered into the world of reality TV — with Love Is Blind serving as a notable example — the streamer is thinking about ways it can incorporate viewer commentary into its programming. An earlier experiment with public polls centered around Love Is Blind and fellow dating show Too Hot To Handle. That was around the time when Netflix was starting to get serious about its interactive offerings, including its library of mobile games.
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Four years later, with more than 120 games available for its subscribers, Netflix is thinking of more ways to turn its platform into a two-way conversation. The concept of real-time voting harkens to the days when reality TV fans used their phones to send in millions of votes for their favorite American Idol contestants.
Netflix, perhaps encouraged by its subscribers’ enjoyment of older shows, has started bringing back some of those 2000s reality competitions. An upcoming reboot of Star Search, set to premiere in 2026, will make use of real-time voting.
“If you’re sitting at home watching Star Search on your TV, you’ll be able to either on the TV or your mobile phone actually put in a vote that advances or doesn’t advance some of the contestants on the show,” Stone said. “So it’s just a very early starting example of the ways that we think content can be more interactive over time, across devices, between TV and mobile, where a member who subscribes to Netflix can actually feel like they’re part of the story, influence the storyline, and feel immersed in that.”
Stone’s talk of cross-screen synergy is interesting, but the implementation of real-time voting feels like a nod to the concept of “lean back viewing,” which is associated primarily with the living room. Netflix has some ground to make up on YouTube in that area, and features like voting will help the streamer position itself as an all-in-one entertainment destination.
