You can’t say that Netflix is a struggling company, but it does have a problem: for many of its shows, viewing figures decline sharply after the first season. According to Bloomberg, Beef lost more than 70% of its viewers from the start of its second season, while The Night Agent lost 50% of its audience in the second season.
This seems to be a pattern repeated across many Netflix shows, including some that rack up impressive viewing figures in their first season. The streaming platform depends on maintaining subscribers, and these statistics are apparently “a major cause for 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, I’ve been a Netflix subscriber for many years — and I have some ideas about what’s going on.
Visualize fatigue
There’s a lot to contend with these days, isn’t there? Tens of millions of songs on music streaming platforms, more movies than you’ll ever have time to watch in ten lifetimes, and of course the entire history of television – with new shows appearing every week. Perhaps it’s no surprise that we all struggle to stick with successive series when there’s so much more to watch and listen to.
The way Netflix’s stats work is that a drop in viewership for a second season also includes those who dropped out of the series somewhere along the way during the first run of episodes. And if you’re not gripped episode after episode by the plot and characters, it’s too tempting to click.
It’s a shame for slow-moving shows and those that need time to get going, and maybe we all need to learn to be a little more patient. However, this partly explains why Netflix shows can lose a lot of viewers after the initial run of the first episodes – there’s a huge amount of competition for our attention.
The frenzy model
For the most part, Netflix keeps dropping its shows all at once, so as soon as they go live, you can watch an entire season on repeat. Sometimes it’s great to be able to breeze through a bunch of episodes, but it also means you can get through an entire season very quickly.
This exacerbates the problem of gaps between series (more of which in a moment), but it also means that shows can be quickly forgotten in the rush of everything going on. Some of my favorite TV shows are the ones that come out week after week: I watch the episode, then catch up on the recap podcasts.
This means shows are running longer – not in terms of how long they actually air, but in terms of how many days and weeks it takes to complete a season. I actually like being able to binge shows sometimes, but that means they can be quickly forgotten.
Variations from one season to another
This isn’t something that only affects Netflix, but we still see huge gaps between seasons of shows – and unless the viewing experience is very special, this will likely lead to a decrease in audience enthusiasm as the months and years drag on.
Silo isn’t a Netflix show, but the point is the same: As I sat down to watch season three a few days ago, even the initial recap montage confused me (there were only 18 months between the end of season two and the start of season three). There were parts I didn’t remember and I had to go to Wikipedia to catch up.
Stranger Things is a Netflix show, and while I managed to get through it in its entirety, it was a struggle towards the end. The show lasted just under a decade, and there are huge chunks of it that are no longer in my memory banks. It’s not easy to produce TV shows quickly, but the slow rollout isn’t helping their chances.
A problem of trust
I’ve seen Netflix’s regular cancellation of shows cited as a reason for second series syndrome, and I think it’s a problem for show makers as well as audiences. If you’re not sure whether or not you’ll get a second or third season, then you need to throw everything into the first and think more about wrapping it up neatly than extending it.
The Night Agent is one of the Netflix shows I’ve had a hard time sticking with: the original premise of the rookie on the run worked well and the first season was propulsive entertainment, but as it went on it became more of a by-the-numbers action thriller. It’s almost like they’re making it up as they go along.
Compare this with something like The Bridgerton Chronicleswhich is a Netflix show that I’ve managed to keep up with. It is of course based on a series of books (as is the Apple TV one Slow horses moreover), and this ensures variety from one season to the next, with the emphasis being placed on the different characters and storylines.
I’m not sure how Netflix can solve the problem of audience numbers dropping in season two – I’m not a highly paid TV executive after all – but here are some thoughts on why this is happening.
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