(Seacia Pavao / Netflix)
Why has Netflix cancelled so many shows lately? Recently, executives Ted Sarandos and Bela Bajaria discussed the reasoning behind the season one cancellations of TV shows like The Society, Away, and Teenage Bounty Hunters, reports Deadline.
In addition to the three series above, Netflix has cancelled I Am Not Okay with This, GLOW, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Spinning Out, and more this year.
During the recent Paley International Council Summit, Netflix executives Ted Sarandos and Bela Bajaria explained the streaming service’s decision to cancel so many shows after their first season. Bajaria said:
If you look at season twos and more, we actually have a renewal rate of 67%, which is industry standard. We also do make a large amount of first season shows, which sometimes feels that we have more first season cancellations but if you look at the renewal rate it’s really strong. I also think you have to look at The Crown, with season four launching now, Grace & Frankie and The Ranch, we’ve had long running shows and we’re always going to have a mix that are great to be told in a limited series form and shows that go on for multiple seasons.
I’ve been in the business a long time and been on all different sides of those cancellations. It’s always painful to cancel a show and nobody wants to do that. We order straight to series in the first rather than make pilots, which results sometimes in more season one cancellations. Even with that, I still believe a season order is still a better creative expression of a writer’s idea so I still think that’s the right model for us.
Sarandos noted that it felt like bigger news when the streaming service cancelled a show. He added that Netflix doesn’t necessarily measure a show’s success on its longevity:
It seems like in this new age of television, the business model is a little different. The things that marked success prior to Netflix and OTT really had been getting to syndication, that was the goal and anything that didn’t get to 100 episodes or past the four seasons didn’t feel like a success, whereas I think many shows can be a success for being exactly what they are and you could tell that story in two seasons or one season or five seasons. I think it gets talked about so much because it’s measured against the old way of doing things.”
What do you think? Which cancelled Netflix TV shows do you wish had been renewed?
Can we just cancel Netflix and this ******* too? Please?
I find that this doesn’t really ‘discuss the criticisms’ at all. ‘Discussing the criticisms’ would be explaining how or why the decisions to cancel these shows are made. This isn’t a new model, unless that model is ‘leaving shows unfinished’. In which case, the next question should be: ‘Why should we bother to watch Netflix Originals at all?’ It’s perfectly fine to have a finite length of time for a show. ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘The Good Place’ are two recent examples. The original UK version of ‘The Office’ ran for just 3 seasons – 14 total episodes. In all 3… Read more »
I would guess that data plays a role in this, as it does everything else in the digital world. They’ll have very precise viewing figures for these shows, and if something isn’t an instant hit, it gets pulled. This is a pity, as good shows like Away, Teenage Bounty Hunters and I Am Not OK With This would certainly have developed well over time, but nothing’s given time to build an audience any more. This could also become a self-fullfilling prophesy because audiences might not bother to invest their time in anything subtle or original as they fear it’ll get… Read more »
Well Teenage Bounty Hunters was a well written and well acted performance to say the least. The concept of The Society alone should if kept it alive not to mention the cast. Netflix seems to have it wrong. Season one is the cliff hanger, the one that draws you into the show. Season 2-14 those are the story arc and season 15 is when you give up and drive it home. If netflix wants to throw money away at random season ones. Don’t call it a series and just call it a mini series with a written out finale. You’re… Read more »
The Society! I am so so so disappointed it is not coming back. If I could pick one that would be it!
I think if shows do as well as the sociaety and teenage bounty hunters did then they should be given that second season AT THE LEAST! It’s not like they have limited prime time slots like regular programming.
How is any of that an answer to why those shows were cancelled?
Teenage Bounty Hunters was one of the funiest, well written, and well casted shows I’ve seen in a long time. It will be missed.
The problem is not this Netflix Boss shortsightedness but the model to generating revenue that Netflix has adopted as it moved from being a packager/delivery of content it acquired from studios to a producer of content. In the days before Cable Companies produced shows (before 2000s) if a TV Broadcast Network canceled a show after one season it was never seen again – and this was when show seasons were 20 or more episodes and not the 8 to 10 today on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Prime. The model that Netflix has to now follow is one of… Read more »