When Netflix cancelled Chambers earlier this month, was your first reaction, “Already?” Or, “What is Chambers?” And when it was announced that Santa Clarita Diet‘s latest season would be its last, was your initial response, “Wait, Season 3 came out?!”
In other words: Is Netflix giving its audience enough time to A) become aware of, B) find, and then C) binge-watch its original fare — and in expedient enough a manner to be counted by the streaming giant’s renew/cancel metrics?
As told to Vulture about a year ago, Netflix renew/cancel decisions are largely based on the amount of people who complete a season within four weeks of its release. And the numbers appear to bear that out. Looking at seven of its most recent cancellations, the bad news came anywhere from within four weeks of premiere (in the case of Santa Clarita Diet’s abrupt axing after three seasons) to seven (as with one-and-doners Chambers, The Good Cop and Everything Sucks!). Similarly but on the happier side, Lucifer was renewed for its second Netflix season less than four weeks after its debut on the service.
But ask yourself, based on your own TV consumption habits: Is four weeks a reasonable enough span of time to find and binge something in full?
But whereas a broadcast or cable series that releases episodes on a weekly basis will also generate preview pieces, sneak peek releases and post mortems all season long, all serving as reminders that such-and-such show is now airing, a “binge” release doesn’t enjoy commensurate coverage. That’s because it’s tricky to highlight/preview any episode beyond the premiere, since you can’t know where any given reader is at with their binge. Recaps and post mortems are a bit easier, as TVLine for example has demonstrated with Fuller House, The Haunting of Hill House, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Lucifer, to name a few, because you can warn readers to “steer clear!” unless they have reached that episode.
I need not remind you, Netflix has a “mind-boggling amount of programming” (as chief content officer Ted Sarandos himself put it for Vulture). Per one report, we’re talking 700 original shows worldwide, plus 80 original films. As Sarandos summed up his strategy there: “More shows, more watching. More watching, more sub[scriber]s. More subs, more revenue. More revenue, more content.”
Or, said differently: Should you have to binge an entire season in so fixed a time frame, as if it is some sort of cockamamie race?
If streaming is famously about “watching what you want, when you want,” we shouldn’t feel so pressured to plow through a season within a month. Netflix factoring in six (if not eight) weeks would set a far more realistic goal, recognizing that any given person is not only about any “one” show. Them old-timey broadcast-TV shows typically get at least 13 weeks to state their case, to open well and hold onto enough of that audience that they hopefully see another season, all while benefiting from regular reminders in the form of previews, interviews and TVLine’s world-famous What to Watch alerts.
“Binge” shows, though, only get that one big promotional push (if they’re lucky) at launch, and then… well, it’s in the TV gods’ hands.
Out of 31 Netflix renew/cancel decisions reported on by TVLine in the past 12 months, 74 percent were a thumbs-up (if we generously count all five powered-down Marvel shows as a package of “one”); Sarandos meanwhile has said he aims for an 80 percent renewal rate.
Maybe allowing audiences a better chance to build would help close that gap?
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