Netflix has had some hits. The series finale of “Stranger Things,” for example, pulled in 31.3 million views worldwide, and it wasn’t even the streamer’s biggest show. That would be “Squid Game,” season one of which achieved 265.2 million views. Season one of the second-biggest series, “Wednesday,” released in 2022, drew 252.1 million views. Season two of “Wednesday,” released in 2025, dropped to 119.3 million views. Season three is slated for release in 2027 – that’s three seasons in five years. Since Netflix began offering original programming, though, it’s canceled 85 series, at least at the time of writing. The problem is that those cancellations are basically Netflix’s specialty. While easy to attribute the gaps between seasons to the dropoff in numbers, and thus the need to cancel, it’s not just that, though the gaps are ridiculous. It’s the business model. It lives to cancel series. And while the service is profitable, it also sucks. Killing programming shouldn’t be the goal of production studios. Substacker Aakash Gupta has a theory about why Netflix suffers in a way that, say, HBO Max does not. On X, he posited that the gaps punish Netflix twice. That is, since it releases series all at once, it encourages bingeing, but then when people have to wait years for another season, they’ve lost interest. HBO Max, which also has ridiculous gaps between seasons, at least draws them out, forcing people to wait between episodes. That creates a stickier product because viewers invest months in each season rather than a weekend. This could be accurate – or not. Streaming services don’t like sharing their data because it could be used by competitors. Perhaps it is that Netflix’s internal metrics reveal a much less popular show than it would seem to viewers. On the other hand, it could be that the company is simply quick to cancel rather than putting in the effort to develop a show, such as network favorite “The Office,” with massive potential. This happens, or at least used to happen, more than people realized. “Seinfeld” had a weak start, something even we fans have to admit. “Cheers,” which ended up wildly successful, was almost canceled in its first season. “Futurama” has been canceled twice, with its final season streaming this year. This isn’t a phenomenon that’s unique to television, either. Many bands and artists that ended up with long, successful careers started off with a flop or two. Bruce Springsteen, Hall and Oates, Genesis, Pantera, Tori Amos, David Bowie, Shakira, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan, and Bon Jovi all would’ve been axed had they been streaming shows. Musicians and bands, though, can bypass the studio gatekeepers much more easily now. For starters, the barriers to entry are much lower than they once were. They don’t need recording studios, just some equipment, an interface, and a laptop. Second, once they have a product, they can simply upload it to Spotify, SoundCloud, Beatport, and YouTube. Unless, God forbid, AI becomes a popular way to produce video content, it still costs money to make a show. And unlike music, a field which also became more ruthless when sabermetrics came to dominate all, it’s not as easy for those who want to make it to bypass those gatekeepers. Gone are the days of deciders with good instincts willing to take a chance on a product. Now, it’s all analytics. (Unrelated, but please comment and share this article, and subscribe if you don’t already do so.) And there is nothing inherently wrong with an analytical approach to business. The problem is when the business of art, which is what streaming platforms sell, becomes purely analytically driven. No, something like “Eastbound and Down” isn’t what people would traditionally consider art, but when you really dig into just how juvenile and vulgar Shakespeare was, you gain an appreciation for how sometimes being really old can change people’s perceptions. Incidentally, “Eastbound and Down,” an HBO show, is a more modern example of beating the system, even though it aired on cable. Part of its brilliance was Danny McBride’s. The show was filmed in North Carolina. Although there were family concerns, a major reason was the lack of direct flights from L.A. to Wilmington, which allowed them to create season one without interference from the executives. Season one was successful, and the studio trusted them moving forward. Now, though, the execs are always watching, keeping up with the numbers, canceling without compunction. And while it makes money, the modern system, particularly as Netflix employs it, doesn’t tend to create the lasting sort of programming that the old ways did. For even though “Stranger Things” closed out with strong numbers, it also closed out with a very anticlimactic ending, after only five seasons over nine and a half years. As things currently stand, the Netflix formula is unlikely to change unless its profits turn south. Which is a shame, because the future would be better with a return to executives looking to make not just money, but also great programming, even if the numbers don’t initially justify keeping a show on for another season. Step one is to get rid of the ridiculous gaps and the focus on bingeing. Both are overrated, and as the push notification from the Wall Street Journal I received while writing this suggests, they actually aren’t working out so well for maintaining overall engagement. The proposed solution? Adding live television, which is a revolutionary idea. In any case, maybe it’s not that analytics are bad after all, but how the executives respond to them. *** Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to here. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4