Netflix as a company is famous, or infamous perhaps, for killing off original series before their time. Despite the frequent protests from fans and subscribers, Netflix regularly axes original shows within a few seasons, even popular ones like Luke Cage, Altered Carbon, Tuca and Bertie, and Sense8. Statistics indicate that the average Netflix original show only gets two seasons, and recently audiences got a peek into the reasoning behind that philosophy, courtesy of Wired.
It is, as with many things in the modern era, a question of data and metrics. While these shows, when cancelled, often inspire a huge swell of fan protests; for Netflix, it’s all about the numbers. While Netflix does not release traditional viewership metrics for public consumption, it has been widely reported that the company makes its decisions based on a simple comparison: viewership vs. renewal cost. If the show in question brings in enough viewers to offset the cost of a new season, it gets renewed, if not, it gets the axe.
VP of original programming Cindy Holland once remarked that: “The biggest thing that we look at is, are we getting enough viewership to justify the cost of the series?” But that’s not the only metric used. According to other publicly available materials, Netflix also considers three other numbers: Starters, Completers, and Watchers. Starters refers to households or subscribers that watch only one episode of a show, Completers refers to those who watch an entire season, and Watchers includes every subscriber who watches the show. The company also reportedly considers the number of people who watch a season within a month of launch to be an important metric. It seems that, according to these metrics, most shows don’t justify the cost of extra seasons, when Netflix could be getting better returns on a new project instead.
To some extent this information is unsurprising. It makes sense that Netflix is considering the opening month of a show to be its most important window. However, this also suggests that Netflix is unlikely to reconsider how it renews shows, and they apparently have little interest in playing the long game with any of their original programming. While smash hits like Stranger Things may justify repeat renewals, it seems that for the time being, everything else is under constant risk of not hitting quotas. All fans can do in the meantime is watch their favorite Netflix originals as soon as possible, and make their voices heard online for what they want to keep seeing.
Source: Wired
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