You could hardly say that Netflix is a troubled business, but it does have a problem: for many of its shows, viewing figures are declining sharply after the first season. According to Bloomberg, Beef lost more than 70% of its viewers in its second season, while The night agent It lost 50% of its audience in the second season.
This seems to be a repeating pattern for many Netflix shows, including some that rack up impressive viewership numbers in their first season. The streaming platform depends on subscribers sticking around, and these statistics are apparently “a major source of concern” for Netflix executives.
So what's going on? While I'm not privy to Netflix's internal discussions or the statistics its executives have at their disposal, I'm a longtime Netflix subscriber and have some ideas about what's going on.
See fatigue
There's a lot to overcome these days, right? Tens of millions of songs on music streaming platforms, more movies than you'll have time to watch in ten lifetimes, and of course the entire history of television, with new shows appearing weekly. Perhaps it's no surprise that we all find it difficult to continue with successive series when there is so much more to see and hear.
The way Netflix statistics work is that a drop in viewing numbers for a second season also includes those who left the show at some point during the first set of episodes. And if the plot and characters don't grab you episode after episode, it's too tempting to click.
It's a shame for slow programs and those that need time to get going, and maybe we all need to learn to be a little more patient. However, it goes some way to explaining why Netflix shows can lose a lot of viewers after the initial pull of the first few episodes: there are so many things competing for our attention.
The compulsive model
For the most part, Netflix continues to release its shows all at once, so as soon as they're available, you'll be able to watch an entire season. Sometimes it's great to be able to record a bunch of episodes, but it also means you can finish an entire season very quickly.
This exacerbates the problem of gaps between series (which we'll talk about later), but it also means that shows can be quickly forgotten in the hustle and bustle of everything going on. Some of my favorite TV shows are the ones that come out week after week: I watch the episode and then catch up on recap podcasts.
It means that shows run longer, not in terms of actual running time, but in terms of how many days and weeks it takes to finish a season. In fact, sometimes I quite like being able to binge-watch shows, but that means they can be quickly forgotten.
Gaps from season to season
This isn't something that just affects Netflix, but we're still seeing big gaps between seasons of shows, and unless the viewing experience is very special, that's likely to cause audience enthusiasm to wane as the months and years go by.
Silo It's not a Netflix show, but the point is the same: When I was preparing to watch the third season a few days ago, even the opening recap montage confused me (there were a mere 18 months between the end of the second season and the beginning of the third season). There were parts I didn't remember and I had to head to Wikipedia to catch up.
stranger things is a Netflix show, and although I managed to follow it in its entirety, it was a struggle towards the end. The show lasted just under a decade, and there are large portions of it that are no longer in my memory banks. It's not easy to produce TV shows quickly, but slow releases don't help your chances.
A trust problem
I've seen the regular cancellation of Netflix shows as a reason for second series syndrome, and I think this is a problem for both show creators and audiences. If you don't know if you're going to have a second or third season, then you have to put everything into the first and think more about finishing it carefully than extending it.
The night agent is one of the Netflix shows I've found difficult to stick with: the original rookie-on-the-run premise worked well and the first season was propulsive entertainment, but as it's continued, it's become more of a by-the-numbers action thriller. It's almost like they're making it up as they go along.
Compare that to something like Bridgertonwhich is a Netflix show I've managed to keep up with. Of course, it's based on a series of books (just like the one on Apple TV). slow horses by the way), and that helps ensure variety from season to season, with the focus shifting between different characters and plots.
I'm not sure exactly how Netflix can fix the problem of declining viewing numbers in the second season (I'm not a highly paid TV executive, after all), but those are some ideas about why it's happening.
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