In the first few years after the likes of “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black” began Netflix’s wave of original content, it was known as the streaming service that didn’t cancel anything.
That tune quickly changed and from the mid-2010s onwards, it’s now seen as a service that’s one of the quickest to cancel anything, with few shows rarely going beyond 3-4 seasons.
It turns out though that perception is a little wrong according to a new study from Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP+) and Luminate looking at canceled series from leading U.S.-based streaming and linear programmers over the past three years.
The data, covering all series (scripted and unscripted) canceled between 2020 and August 8th 2023, saw a combined average cancellation rate of 12.2% from the streamers. In comparison, the overall broadcast TV cancellation rate was 26.6% and the overall cable TV cancellation rate was 7.2%.
More telling though was the cancellation rate among the individual streamers. It’s here that Netflix actually came in fifth with a cancellation rate of just 10.2% – almost tying with Peacock at a flat 10%.
Four others came in higher, considerably higher in fact with Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max service the most axe-happy of the lot at 26.9%. Not far behind was Disney+ at 21.1%, follow by Paramount+ at 16.9% and Hulu at 15.2%.
The best for keeping a show on the air? Apple TV+ where the cancellation rate was just 4.9%, nearly half that of next nearest competitor Amazon Prime at 9%.
A big part of the perception for Netflix cancelling everything is sheer volume, thus despite the smaller percentage the number of actually cancelled shows is considerable.
Even so, the study found it was the only streamer that actually improved its cancellation rate every year from 2020 through 2023.
There were reportedly 221 cancellations across all of the major streamers from 2020-2023, compared to 193 on linear television (broadcast+cable).
Source: Variety
