I don’t think Netflix actually cancels shows after two seasons any more often than other networks do.
Somehow people got it into their heads that Netflix is far more cancel-happy than its competitors, but if you look at the numbers, traditional TV networks have had like a 50% cancellation rate for decades.
Even TOS was cancelled after two seasons!
If Netflix is more prone to cancelling shows at all, which I’m not convinced is even true, it can’t be by an enormous margin.
Actually there’s both metric evidence and statements by senior Netflix executives that a show has to do well in the first few weeks to be renewed.
They’re also very committed to their drop it all at once, or at most in 2 parts per season.
So it creates an environment where shows are rarely renewed unless they are top of the streaming charts.
They may have a different decision criteria for kid and family shows though.
There was an article a few weeks ago about how Netflix only has about a 15% cancellation rate. Unfortunately there was no deep dive into the data, so the figures are suspect. A few factors that weren’t considered:
- A very significant percentage of Netflix programming is reality TV and cheap junk. This doesn’t get cancelled because well, it’s cheap.
- Many series don’t get cancelled, they just aren’t renewed. If Netflix tells the producers this is the last season, they’re gonna rush the storyline to some kinda ending regardless of whether it was originally supposed to stretch several more seasons.
