What's the oniony bit here?

Netflix has metrics for success. They cancel shows that don't meet them, and don't cancel shows that do.

That's cool Ted. I've never told anyone to watch Netflix because all the shows I like get cancelled. They already know about the 5 popular ones.

I want Mindhunter back.

I want more Dead end Paranormal Park.

I canceled Netflix because they canceled so many unsuccessful shows that I thought were pretty good

I assume the metric for success is simply a ratio of operating cost versus viewership. Seems pretty obviously like all other television networks, but what's the ratio?

Does that count too for tentpole or award bait properties, though?

I never watch Netflix shows until they have a few seasons

Is he okay?

What about Santa Clarita Diet? Disjointed?

Mindhunter wasn't canceled. Fincher decided other projects were a higher priority for him and they eventually released everyone from their contracts since he wasn't doing the next season. Fingers crossed he decides to do it and they can get everyone back. I wish they'd have found someone to take over the series instead of letting him end it.

Can't cancel a successful show if you cancel everything before it has a chance to become one!

He's obviously delusional. These idiots don't want just success, they expect all their shows to reach Stranger Things or Squid Game levels of success. What really determines that a show is successful anyway? They should be looking into that instead of just saying bullshit like this.

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They should lower their metric, like how your mother had went she made you.

Funny that it’s on the AV club, which came from the onion.

People really are upset a capitalist enterprise is only interested in quick profits and not necessarily keeping fans happy.

It's not like people have been saying the profit motive is a nightmare for the arts since forever or anything...

Shows are only successful if everyone binges them in the first week. Having a backlog of shows that last all the way to the end of the story seems to not be important to them.

It was so good, dammit.

MST3K?

Fans funded the whole 13th season on their own after funding a lot of 11 so that Netflix could pick it up, throttle the 12th season, then drop it

I'm still mad about Santa Clarita. That show was so good and the chemistry between all the characters (not just Drew and Timothy, but the whole cast) was super enjoyable.

Sure, if you define success as not having been cancelled, his statement is correct

His ass is sucking wind.

If Netflix wasn’t free courtesy of Comcast, I’d have cancelled that shiz a long time ago.

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This title suggests Ted Sarandos is hopelessly out of touch with the audience and is incapable of equating the cancellation of multiple popular shows with the loss of viewers who are sick of buying into characters and storylines only for the shows to be cancelled after one or two series.

I recently cancelled my 8 year Netflix membership and have no intention of going back despite how many "Lets get back together" and "we've added x TV programmes and films" junk emails they want to send me.

I had brand loyalty and was naively against services like Disney+ who i thought simply wanted a piece of the streaming pie, now given the decline of Netflix I've decided was misplaced and there are many better options.

Wasn't "I'm not okay with this" cancelled due to difficulty dealing with a large cast during covid. Weren't there other shows that fell under that reason for cancelation? Please tell me if I'm wrong about the reasoning but if I'm not then don't those count as successful cancelations?

Shall we start listing them all now, or wait a few minutes?

Netflix has George Santos energy

thats a huge lie

He needs to read some Marcus Aurelius

So so so massively incorrect. Seems like they’ve mostly only cancelled successful shows. And didn’t they just let their CEO go?

What's his definition of "successful show"

Ted Sarandos is happy to announce that Ted Sarandos is canceling Ted Sarandos for lack of being a successful show.

Cool. So when is Travelers coming back?

> People really are upset a capitalist enterprise is only interested in quick profits and not necessarily keeping fans happy.

Well, yeah. Especially when they're niche fans who in aggregate don't spend nearly enough to keep the cult shows they adore afloat. Them being vocal doesn't grant their position any additional importance.

> It's not like people have been saying the profit motive is a nightmare for the arts since forever or anything

These artists are free to not "sell out" and keep their artistic vision pure. But you know, they're pretty into the profit motive, too.

Their metrics are bad. They focus entirely on short term, rapid growth hits (like Squid Game and Stranger Things) that bring in new users and not on a long-term plan around loyalty and retention. Then they wonder why they can't keep users around.

Their stock has been on a downward slope for a long time now so I think they should listen to their users.

> They should lower their metric, like how your mother had went she made you.

Sick burn, brah! Your little sister help you come up with that one?

FYI you spelled "when" wrong.

> They focus entirely on short term, rapid growth

This is pure speculation on your part. I like how you treat it as a fact.

> Then they wonder why they can't keep users around.

Care to speculate some more, maybe on when and why I canceled my subscription? It'll be funny to see you completely whiff another one.

> Their stock has been on a downward slope for a long time now

No, it hasn't. It had a precipitous fall in the first half of 2022. It's been steadily trending upwards since then.

> so I think they should listen to their users.

You should probably learn what their actual motives are and what their stock is actually doing before forming such opinions.

Of course this is a useless source in a Reddit argument but my friend is an engineer at Netflix and I'm mostly echoing her takes. Ofc she can be wrong but I'm not completely speculating. I don't really care why you cancelled your netflix subscription.

Final space still got fucked

> Ofc she can be wrong but I'm not completely speculating.

Unless she's routinely invited to board meetings or she's peeping at people's emails, she is. I was an engineer at Paypal and I can tell you exactly 0% about how top management came to their decisions. Same with every other Fortune 500 company I've worked for, and there are a handful.

That's fair. I feel like I usually understand what's going on strategically at the companies I work for, but also all the businesses I've worked for have had less than 200 employees or so, so it's not that hard. I imagine the level of transparency is not high at a Fortune 500.

Mr ball leg needs a spin off

I mean, once you cancel it it’s no longer successful, so he’s right!

That’s called a self fulfilling prophecy Ted.

Talk about out of touch with your user base.

I want Matt Ryan back as Constantine

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There's like a zillion other cop procedurals if that helps.

Final Space was Turner and Adult Swim. Netflix only had the streaming rights

I really loved that show. Started off as a I guess I can have this on while doing chores.....moved to omfg I'm going to have to rewatch it immediately.

Really? I never saw anything about it on adult swim. I knew it was conans company

I'm probably the only lilyhammer fan but I was sad it wasn't properly finished

So they've never had a successful show?

Didn’t they cancel Dark Crystal literally hours after it won an Emmy?

I think they are using some metrics a lot of us wouldn’t agree with.

The intro to that show scares the daylights out of my parents cats, to the point that Lilyhammering became a word they use anytime something startling happens.

Exactly. I haven't killed a single living person.

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Shows that don't get cancelled

Awards and critical acclaim == $

I never really appreciated the episode per week format until someone pointed out the benefits. It lets viewers form a community that discusses each episode, speculates on new developments, and savors it over time.

From the platform's standpoint, that means fewer people subscribing just to binge a show or two. Hence Disney can trickle out Mandalorian episodes that retains subscribers, but Netflix drops Stranger Things in one or two batches every year or more that might get fewer sustaining subscribers.

I completely agree. Binge watching is a short term "pleasure" but I think it's detrimental to the long term impact of shows. Either you binge everything asap, or you get the show spoiled on next Mondays lunch break.

It turns the entire thing into a solitary experience. You never really feel like there's a point in talking to acquaintances about the shows, because the odds of you being at the same point in the show are so low.

I want more Inside Job.

I wanted more Santa Clarita Diet.

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Binging was a great strategy when they were growing so quickly. They should have long switched to weekly releases. There are shows I literally miss because I haven't logged in for a while and it's no longer even promoting it to me

Not if they suck

Whatever internal benchmarks a show of a given budget needs to meet for Netflix to continue it.

Thus his statement is absolutely true, but also almost tautological to the point of being useless.

Great application of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

That's him

Is this like "I like people who weren't captured"?

So much ignorance on this thread about how shows get made and how the streaming business works.

Luckily Netflix gives few shits about Redditors, unless they are gifting millions in free positive publicity for a show. It will not preserve that show for you, but appreciate the pub!

Huh, seems like somebody greenlit a LOT of unsuccessful shows. I wonder who did that, Ted?

This is some 'the front fell off' levels of bullshit, really.

"We're cancelling your show because it's not successful."

"How do you know it's not successful?"

"Well, we're cancelling it for starters. That doesn't happen when it's successful."

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Guess that makes Ted a liar now, don’t it

I really miss Daredevil

I want Inside Job and Dead End back.

Tell that to the Dark Crystal

His head is certainly pretty far up his ass.

This is actually it. Netflix looks at completion ratio - how many people started the series or season, and how many finished it? But when Netflix was new and binge was the thing, that worked. Now? Most people I know watch an episode, or a few, each week. They don't binge the entire series in a sitting anymore. Netflix is canceling shows while people are still actively watching them and are being tallied in the non-complete demographic. They're impatient, and it's leading people not to start series until they've been picked up for the next season at all.

I mean that was Disney not Netflix. Plus another season is coming out.

You stupid fucks are confusing successful for “show I like” Why the fuck would Netflix cancel shows that make money? Nah Teds probably right. They probably only canceled shows that lose or aren’t making enough money. And that’s how they measure success

Netflix has cancelled more shit than Twitter.

Jesus also cares, as do I

Show of hands, who calls bullshit?

Bring back Tuca and Bertie!

I am genuinely not sure what the point of your comment is.

They most likely define success as views and retention. I haven't seen the metrics, but my guess would be that most shows are "a small group of people really likes it but it doesn't draw the larger audience and as such doesn't pay for itself". Yes, a show does need to have a large audience to exist, otherwise it's a waste of money. No, the fact that you personally really really liked it doesn't make it "successful"

> Shows are only successful if everyone binges them in the first week

Which is dumb because streaming was supposed to be different than regular TV.

I might've tuned in every Wednesday to watch this week's episode of Lost 15 years ago

But I love the convenience of streaming. I can take my time and get around to something at MY pace...

But they're not giving people enough time to actually do that. That first week or two goes by, and BAM, cancelled... Like, could you not? Could you give me a minute?

I'm sure they ran the numbers, I'm sure that this is what's "financially best" for Netflix... But I really think it's going to bite them in the ass in the long run. It was already annoying as fuck starting shows and having them pulled off Netflix before you got a chance to finish. It's doubly annoying to have them cancelled before you even have a chance to catch up. I've still never watched the second season of Sense8 because I just don't see the point.

Ha!

>Shows are only successful if everyone binges them in the first week.

That's because you don't have to pay residuals in the first 90 days.

So a show that everyone watches in the first 3 days is cheaper than the one people watch slowly.

Just like all things statistics, meaning is derived by how you view the numbers. A show can be successful in terms of overall viewership and still be deemed a failure due to stable numbers. In most scenarios stable is good, but to TV execs and venture capitalists anything less than constant growth is a failure. You shouldn’t be so quick to throw shade at fans for the defense of their fandom.

i hate merchandizing but Wednesday could use a more plush sidekick

I wasn't born to two parents.

Best for Netflix is small budget large audience...

But don't tell them that.

Arcane did it in an interesting way. They had nine episodes with three distinct story arcs, and they split it up into three drops of three episodes. You pretty much got a trilogy of movies dropping once a week, and it became a good trade-off. You got your binge moment while also allowing hype to build over the course of the release which turned out extremely successful.

Say you only watch the most popular shows without saying you only watch the most popular shows

I actually watched it on Adult Swim, stumbled upon it looking for something as background noise while I did dishes, saw Final Space aaaaand.. Dishes weren't done that night. God I was so upset when I saw it was cancelled (ON YOUTUBE.).

absolute lier. they cancelled inside job for a tax wright off.

Yup. Or they stop watching the series because they hear it’s cancelled.

Cries in dirk gentlys...

The people with the most disposable income are also often the people who don’t have time to watch an entire series in a few days.

Wheel of Time, for all its flaws, made another interesting choice. They started out by dropping three episodes, then switched to one per week. That got people started with the story (which starts a little slow), but then trickled in with the rest. Then again, WoT has a different fan dynamic because the book series has been finished for ten years already. There's not much guessing to be done.

The list of "series that I like" is not the list of "succesful series".

He is not liar. He have more information than you. If you like a show dont mean that is succesful.

I feel the need to Chime in with The Expanse. It was popular enough with fans that NF picked it up for season 2 but then decided to drop it. Where Amazon picked it up and ran with it for another 2.5 seasons. Sooo tell me how this was an "unsuccessful show" as I suspect there may be a difference of opinion there

Expanse

A lot of people seem to be taking that headline at face value with some bad hot takes, in my opinion.

The full quote is this:

> We have never canceled a successful show. A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget. The key to it is you have to be able to talk to a small audience on a small budget and a large audience at a large budget. If you do that well, you can do that forever.

I don't have the data to know for sure whether he's speaking truth, but why wouldn't he? Be critical in your assessment of that. What could he possibly gain by being misleading about that?

Oh yeah? It’s not like the writing hasn’t been on the walls for years. The joke used to be that they were so desperate for content that they’d greenlight anything. Now their quantity over quality strategy is backfiring and they’re known for canceling anything before it has a chance to become popular. The executives at Netflix are misunderstanding their customers’ behaviors, which is obvious if you’ve ever read through any posts about shows that are canceled. Who wants to invest in watching a show when it might be canceled before it’s conclusion? Sometimes they don’t even adequately market shows. How can a show become “popular” when too few people know it exists?

What got me most about that was it was so good but it also felt like it’s natural conclusion was just 1 or 2 seasons away anyway, they literally robbed us of a proper ending

I don't have the stats, obviously. Nor do I know directly how Netflix measure "success".

But, if I were to hazard a guess, I reckon it'd look something like this:

• Netflix knows how much a series cost them to make and/or license/distribute
• Netflix knows the overall produced runtime of these shows
• Netflix knows how much of the show was watched, and by how many unique users

Based on these types of stats (and many others), they'd basically be able to boil down the "success" of a show by creating a measure that expressed Dollars Spent Per Minutes Watched.

Suppose that when you look at the economics of some of these brilliant shows (I loved The Expanse), you find out that the Dollars Spent Per Minutes Watched puts it in the top 10%. Suppose they decide this means this show is "Unsuccessful".

I'm just a random internet dickhead, but I figure it is basically an advanced application of this or something similar.

Gonna ignore some of the obvious here and just say:

I promise you that if they determined they'd make more money by keeping it on than the supposed tax write-off they'd get to benefit from by cancelling it - they wouldn't have cancelled it.

HBO canceled a fully filmed and edited Batgirl film. You are a moron.

Right, of course. Sorry.

It's because they hate money, right? How stupid of me.

Has nothing at all to do with the luke-warm test audience reception, or the fact that they determined based on their analysis that they'd get a better fiscal gain by writing it off than the money it would have made them by them releasing it commercially.

I'm the moron. Everyone is wrong except you, you see The Matrix. Share some red pills with the rest of us so we can be as enlightened, please.

You are a moron for coming up with excuses for something that is flat out proven. Die mad

And you shouldn't be quick to throw shade on people whose entire job is to manage their business. Finance department people who do nothing but calculate which metrics exactly the show needs to hit in order to be worth it. I mean, I'm not gonna say that the business doesn't make mistakes. Businesses make lots of mistakes, and sometimes quite stupid ones. But yes, unless I see some kind of evidence of the contrary, my default assumption is that these people are competent at the jobs they were employed to do, and that the decisions they make are sensible

Sadly I can totally agree with that. It probably is exactly that sorta cold blooded math. I mean they are a business entity seeking profit after all. Further to that I wonder if people signing up and immediately watch show X would be a boost to said show.

Perhaps that is why Amazon stuck with as they weighted such a metric differently.

/facepalm

Bring back Sense 8!

Tuca and Bertie got picked up by another network. Season 2 and 3 are available to stream on HBOmax.

Blazing Saddles. a Mell Brooks tour de force absurdist deconstruction of the western genre. Warner Brothers wanted to hold on to the IP rights, which reverted to Brooks six months after release unless something was made of them.

So WB made Black Bart, a TV pilot continuing the adventures from the movie. It was shown on TV, once. A not unusual story of the time (1974) which appeared to conclude in a usual manner, pilot then shrug and move on when it doesn't gain traction.

​

What is unusual is the that they apparently filmed the rest of the season, put it in the cans (1974. Filming was done on film, edited on film then converted for broadcast) and then locked away. According to some sources they made four seasons of it. (Some old concept called syndication I believe.)

​

Nobody outside 70's Warner Brothers has ever seen it.

Was this cheaper than getting the lawyers to fix the contract with Brooks?

Was someone getting the really good cocaine to keep it going?

What the actual f*** was going on in Hollywood at the time they could keep an entire production team making this when they knew it wasn't going to be released?

What if it was actually a decent comic-western?

I also wanted more 1899 and those are just recent ones!

Basically, this is the No True Scotsman Fallacy.

Do people really think he’s going around canceling all the best and most profitable shows, and he’s doing it just to punish you, personally, knowing it’s going to hurt the Netflix bottom line, because you’re all quitting the service?

Reading these comments, the answer seems to be “yes”.

This may be literally true, but a detail missing is that Netflix clearly throws too much money, and thus expectations, at a show that is just not likely to meet it. It was obvious that Cowboy Bebop, and Resident Evil were doomed to be cancelled when they released. They were too high-budget, too risky and even a relatively positive reception wasn't likely to translate to enough watchers.

They set shows up to fail too often by doing this.

Not a Netflix production

A detail missing is that Netflix clearly throws too much money, and thus expectations, at a show that is just not likely to meet it. It was obvious that Cowboy Bebop, and Resident Evil were doomed to be cancelled when they released. They were too high-budget, too risky and even a relatively positive reception wasn't likely to translate to enough watchers.

They set shows up to fail too often by doing this.

Damn that video was heartbreaking. Assuming you saw the one from the creator.

so, bad judgement AND full of shit. got it

You know, I watched that 90s show. Not the best thing ever, but I enjoyed it enough.

Been googling "That 90s Show cancelled" once a day ever since - just know it's coming.

Cowboy Bebop had positive reception someplace?

No, but I meant even if it did, it was unlikely to gain enough watchers.

Disney+ does that for most of their shows. First week usually has 2 or 3 episodes, then they release 1 a week till the end of the season.

> I am genuinely not sure what the point of your comment is.

To point out the naivety of yours.

How many dead people have you killed?

Funny thing about viewership metrics though, it turns out people aren't very willing to engage with shows that will likely be cancelled after one season. I believe Netflix is doing this to themselves to a degree and they might not even realize it.

stares at the grave of Altered Carbon

One word. Firefly. The show was very successful after it was cancelled. Initial views and retention only define success of you choose that definition. If you are the one defining it, then you are always right. But if you listen to those small groups of fans, they can become large groups of fans. If you cancel a show and never redefine success, then it’s self fulfilling prophecy.

Small groups of fans can become large groups of fans. They also can remain small groups, or even diminish. And the general principle of everything is that successes are much more rare than failures, and the majority of media that didn't catch immediate attention will... just die unknown.

If you gave a chance to every movie that might become popular, you'd be throwing huge piles of money on nothing. Which is not the best business strategy

That one was devastating, I still rewatch it all the time anyway

Absolutely. If someone doesn't change something I see an imminent death spiral. People won't watch new shows out of fear of a cancelation with a cliffhanger, causing Netflix to cancel pretty much every show after their first season. Eventually leading to people leaving Netflix as long as the other streaming services do a better job at telling complete stories.

One possible change would be if Netflix shows were self contained stories each season, no cliffhangers or dangling threads. So that way when they get canceled it will still suck but won't make the shows complete wastes of time

Yeah, was gonna say, old Fox and good niche sci-fi didn't mix.

Then it got canceled again so we're never going to get the end of the story. Season 2 and 3 are good tho.

I don’t think they realize how many of their subscribers are around because they like the niche content. Now that it’s clear they don’t renew unique (non-blockbuster) shows their subscribers will drop and drop as those people lose interest.

I support the concept of shows like Stranger Things, but it’s not my cup of tea. I like Nick Kroll, but Big Mouth and its spin-offs are too crass for me. I’ll watch a click-bait-y doc here and there, but even those are losing their charm because they feel more and more like poorly researched YouTube videos.

I used to love getting surprised by interesting television on Netflix. The OA is a masterpiece. I’m still thinking about 1899 even now. I Think You Should Leave is one of the funniest sketch shows I’ve ever seen (thankfully not canceled yet). Heartstopper is a heartbreaker.

But those are the exceptions, not the rule.

It was such a delightful show, and was getting really interesting.

Yes, its a tautology.

>... unless I see some kind of evidence of the contrary

That's easy. Watch Netflix.

>... my default assumption is that these people are competent at the jobs.

Have you met people? Personally, I look at low odds of getting a group of competent ones together at the same place, and use the default assumption that at one point they were less incompetent than their competitors and that momentum can keep things going for a long time after that is no longer true.

I don't understand why the author of the piece is shocked that someone would say out loud that a cheap series doesn't have to make as much money as an expensive series. Do people not generally get that? Just because a fan base is vocal or highly concentrated in a subreddit doesn't mean it's actually popular.

I am still upset about this. That season was amazing and had me grafted to the screen.

All the big investments were done, the building of the sets, the characters etc.

All Netflix had to do was let things play out and once the show was complete vieuws would have probably skyrocketed.

None of them were dead at the time. What they choose to do with their lives after I've killed them is out of my hands.

This. I've been a netflix member since 2008 and I just cancelled my membership after finding out that netflix cancelled 1899. With a cliffhanger ending. It's simply not worth taking a chance on any of their new shows anymore.

Mindhunter dud it better than every single one out there.

Yeah, like this business strategy is working for them.

Dude, you're projecting. Just because you need an artificial release schedule to force you into a social sharing experience, that doesn't mean others need that mechanism or want that same result. If your social group is going to spoil all your shows on lunch breaks then find a better social circle.

I'm not crying your crying 😭

It was so damn good.

Edited for clarity.

I knew a few people who liked it but not a single one ever heard of the anime.

Shows are canceled for emotional or petty business reasons all the time

Agreed! Sadly the kids have aged by now and it's impossible to continue without recasting or jumping the storyline into the future.

Is that what you think you've done here?

Ok bud. Have a nice day.

I finally bought the books on my kindle to fit the hole the cancelled show left behind. I'm enjoying them a lot but since the series followed the books pretty loosely I'm interested in where the show was going next.

I think Firefly got successful because it was cancelled. No one I know including myself even heard about the show until it was canned then decided to check it out.

sad 1899 noises

Do they solve cases at the end of each episode ?

People who have subscribed to Netflix for years will only cancel their Netflix accounts when they think Netflix will not have enough good content in the future.

"Never cancelled a successful show" a fair thing to say when subscriber counts are growing. It's incorrect when subscriber counts fall. A successful show isn't one that gets a lot of viewers. A show is successful when it is the reason people don't cancel their subscription.

I cancelled my Netflix account. If I thought they would continue to put out and support stuff like The OA and Altered Carbon, I would still have a subscription. Instead they decided to acquire a bunch of what would have been considered straight-to-video content in the days of Blockbuster.

In other words, Netflix management is unable to consistently develop successful shows.

The Expanse was originally a SyFy network show. Netflix just paid for streaming rights. After season 2, SyFy cancelled the show. Amazon picked it up and produced the later seasons. Netflix never "cancelled" the Expanse as they didn't produce the show.

It's fair to assume that Amazon had absolutely no interest in letting Netflix acquire streaming rights for seasons 3, 4 and 5 and Netflix had no interest in putting up only the first 2 seasons when everyone who gets into the show would have to move over to Prime Video to continue watching it.

When a show is cancelled early, rights holders shop it around. It's possible Netflix and others had interest in acquiring the show. If they did, they were outbid by Amazon.

2nd season just became generic bland scifi. Did their budget get cut or something?

Everyone in the thread is like "WRONG" but provide zero examples of a successful show that was cancelled. They list shows they like that not enough people watched to even come close to warranting further production.