No Stupid Questions

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The problem is that the people in charge of the streaming services are very bad at making TV, because their business model is not the same as TVs business model. TVs business model is: sell ads. Run 24 episodes, every episode, build numbers, keep it going. There’s not much brand loyalty, there’s show loyalty.

Streamers care about one thing: getting you to subscribe. The Witcher is a great example. They got a lot of people to subscribe based on season one. Afterwards, all they might be able to use it to get other people to join, and they do, the real money isn’t getting other people to join who’ve never heard of the show, either by advertising for the Witcher, or by moving onto some other property that has a rabid fan base, adapting it, and getting them to join (see also one piece, avatar, etc.). And when they’re waiting for the next season, they find other shows, and are now subscribers for life, and who cares if the next season is 3 years away… or never comes.

As I recall, viewers typically go down as the show goes on. If its got a bad viewership, there's not a great reason to keep pumping money into it when you can put that money into something new that might do much better.

Worse is when a show runner has a great one season arc planned, and half way through it gets renewed for two more seasons. Not only do they have to pad out the story arc and character development with hastily written changes. They have to write a cliffhanger end of season to make you want to come back.

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There are numerous ways cancelling shows and removing them from the platform saves streaming services money, including not having to pay residuals and the ability to write off production costs as a loss on taxes. And, like others have pointed out, streaming services are historically driven by subscription fees instead of ads, and many viewers tend to binge watch shows rather than watch nightly throughout a full season. So all combined, the profit motive tends to push services toward many new short series suitable for binge watching that will keep people subscribed, but that can be quickly cut and taken as a loss.

This Marketplace article provides some other reasons, too.

Until recently, the major cost to growth is getting new customers, not retaining existing ones. Unless there was a mass exodus of fans if a streaming service cancelled a show, streamers are more likely to use the money to make a new show which will attract a new audience than continue an existing series that won't lead to growth.

Orr maybe they could tell a story that iis actually finished in one season without ridiculous cliffhangers.

Your first season already had the length of a movie trilogy? Then better finish the stuff you wanted to tell and don't plan with several follow-up seasons that might never come.