If you wander round various sites tracking cancellations (and I even keep a little list myself) there’s a generally held view shows don’t get more than three or four seasons. Netflix is often cited as having a low ceiling on season count, but is that just a perception, or a real thing?
Why only make a few seasons?
Shows can serve many purposes for a streamer (or any TV company for that matter):
- Attractor — brings people to the streamer. Typically marque titles like Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Marvel, Star Wars…
- Retainer — keeps people subscribed. For me back catalogue is a big part of this, and in my experience Disney+ does well here with it’s huge set of titles
- Affinity — once people watch the show, do they stay or do they wander off to another streamer for content?
TV shows get more expensive to make as they get older. Success breeds inflation, and here advertising may help — I understand when a show such as Friends got enormous, cast wages rocketed but costs are covered by advertising. While Netflix didn’t want to run adverts, there may be a silver lining.
Shows tend to attract most audience in their early seasons. Fewer people try a show after it’s been around a while. I understand the logic here, but I think there’s a counter position — when I look for an old show to watch, the number of seasons is an attractor for me.
In other words, at least in the short / medium term, a streamer does better to keep bringing out new shows for three or four season than stick to a small number for longer.
So what’s the truth with Netflix?
I found an interesting article on PrimeTimer.com — By the Numbers: Only 15 Netflix Shows Have Gone Five Seasons or Longer. It’s a fascinating piece, and it seems the trend is downwards. I don’t recognise most of the shows on the list, and none are shows I tend to focus on.
Before you get carried away, a show like Lucifer doesn’t count — it had six seasons, but only three made by Netflix.
How does Netflix compare?
There’s a very good site for tracking cancellations, Cancelled Sci Fi. They do regular scorecards for all the streamers / broadcasters and recently updated their Netflix scorecard for 2022. Do read it, but the gist is Netflix has become more prone to cancelling shows early, over history it’s not far from the mean, but the trend is in the wrong direction. Being a sci-fi oriented site it talks about shows such as The Irregulars and Jupiter’s Legacy.
Symmetry Junction 