Netflix has earned a reputation for butchery. Fans and showrunners alike have been left reeling as seeming popular shows are cancelled. But is the streaming service’s cancellation rate really worse than traditional TV networks? Bloomberg News investigated.
Competing networks order pilot episodes to determine a show’s potential. And they don’t churn out the same volume of shows as Netflix, so it’s easier to forget their cancellations. The same year HBO released “Game of Thrones,” it introduced a trio of programs that lasted only a couple seasons. Until a few years ago, Netflix had never made a TV series. Netflix bases its decisions on numbers just like most TV networks. But the metrics differ from the usual Nielsen data shared widely in the industry, according to Netflix employees, TV producers and executives who’ve worked with them. And unlike traditional broadcasters the company doesn’t provide much information about what drives decisions.
Check It Out: Netflix Has an Overblown Reputation for Show Cancellations