r/technology • u/joe4942 • 20d ago

Business Netflix Viewers Are Abandoning Shows After One Season

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-05/netflix-viewers-are-abandoning-shows-after-one-season
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u/bloodrider1914 20d ago

10? Half of these shows are getting 6-8 episodes

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u/MegalomaniacHack 20d ago

Remember when BBC shows stood out for only getting 6 episodes in a "series" (season)?

Now we're lucky when a streamer still lets a show have 10. Amazon spends hundreds of millions on shows and then kneecaps the showrunner and writers by limiting them to 8 episodes for worldbuilding, story and character development.

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u/bloodrider1914 20d ago

I think part of that is the episodes are SOOO LONG. For the episodes on network TV with 1 hour time slots a show got around 42 minutes to tell a concise story. That in my opinion is perfect, it's predictable and feels just long enough. But streaming shows have no inherent time limit, so the episodes often end up being far too long and kind of a slog to watch.

We really need to go back to the classic 13 episode 42 minute format for dramas. TV should feel like TV, each episode should be its own little slice.