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On Twitter (I’ll die before I call it “X”), a new reader pinged me with some questions, asking “What’s with all these cancellations these days?”
To me, the question is, “Are there more cancellations than ever before?” to which I would unhelpfully answer, “It’s hard to say!” for a few reasons…
- First, I don’t rigorously track (as in adding data regularly to a spreadsheet) how many TV shows were cancelled (or renewed) any given week, month or quarter.
- Second, I’d need to track that data for a while to spot a trend. And by “a while”, I mean years. Though I’ve been writing update articles on cancellations and renewals for a year and a half, that’s not long enough to identify trends.
- Third, finding a reliable source for cancellations data is tough. As I wrote just last issue, sometimes a show gets cancelled and the streamers don’t say anything.
- Fourth, the boom in content production (post-2019), then the production delays caused by Covid-19 (in 2020) and the strikes (in 2023) make the dataset way too noisy.
But that feels like a bit of a cop out, doesn’t it? What does my gut say? After all, I live and breathe streaming ratings every week. (Often, people want “data” to give concrete, definitive answers, but the more you study data, the more you realize that that is rarely the case.)
Well, if anything, the last three months have felt light in terms of both renewals and cancellations. I’ve waited three months to do an update since there just wasn’t all that much news. Part of this is seasonal; most shows get cancelled at the end of spring as broadcast channels share their lineups for the annual Upfronts presentations. (Of course, this seasonal trend will go down over time as television switches to streaming.)
Long term, though, I’m not surprised at all the cancellations, for two big reasons.
- First, TV shows have always failed at a crazy rate! Remember what I wrote for the Ankler mid-strike last year: in a five-year span in the 90s, only 21% of shows made it to a third season. (Or they ran for about 40 or so episodes.) That was the norm. If anything, deep-pocketed tech companies and debt-financing moved Hollywood away from this, leading to every show getting a second season.
- Then the streaming bubble popped, which I predicted a year and a half ago, if not long before that. If it feels like more shows than ever are getting cancelled, that’s why. (Again, it’s a tough trend to prove with data.)
Finally, regarding this reader’s concerns, I’ll address Kaos below, but I discussed NCIS: Hawaii last update. As I wrote last time, it has a lot to do with the unique circumstances over at CBS. They’ve cancelled shows that would have been top performers on ABC or NBC or would have been top 25 streaming shows by minutes viewed.
That feels weird, but it speaks to the difficult transition Hollywood, in general, and Paramount Global, in particular, faces in the transition to streaming. Paramount is focused on cash flow, and if they think another show can get even higher ratings in that slot, they’ll replace it. Right now, Paramount+ just doesn’t have the subscribers to compete on streaming, even if their shows are getting decent viewership on broadcast.
Okay, on to the renewals and cancellations. There’s a lot to go over, including a new trend in streaming TV show renewals, predicting which shows get cancelled, one streamer who’s still renewing unpopular shows, a lot of edge cases and shows on-the-bubble, Disney+’s latest removals, and more.
Popular Shows That Got Renewed
I love, love, love that Netflix renewed both The Night Agent and The Diplomat for third seasons before their second seasons even came out. Hopefully, Netflix is doing this to keep the shows on schedule, i.e. coming out yearly. If there’s one major issue with streaming production, it’s that new seasons of hit shows can take over a year to come out. This solves that problem. (H/T to Kasey Moore of What’s on Netflix for spotting The Diplomat’s early renewal before anyone else.) Netflix also re-upped Love is Blind for an eighth season before season seven premiered. All three of these shows were big hits.
Nobody Wants This just came out two weeks ago, but it’s already made the Luminate, Samba TV, Just Watch, TV Time and Reelgood charts, so it’s safe to assume that it’s doing well in terms of viewership, and thus it’s getting a second season. (But it’s getting new showrunners for season two.) Netflix also renewed The Gentlemen for a second season and Owning Manhattan, which popped on the ratings charts in its second week. The Gentlemen has been one of Netflix’s biggest hits this year:
Netflix clearly has a stable of hit shows compared to the other streamers.
Other streamers are following Netflix’s lead, with Prime Video renewing Reacher early, and Peacock has already renewed The Traitors for two more seasons. Hulu waited until Only Murders in the Building (one of their biggest hits) had been out for a week or so to order a fifth season. Same goes for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, one of Hulu’s biggest reality shows of all time.
Unsurprising Cancellations
That was the good news; on to the bad/unsurprising news: all the cancellations for underperforming shows. Note: my list of flops, bombs and misses of the first half of the year predicted a lot of these cancellations!
Netflix cancelled Kaos after one season, which, I’ll be honest, surprised me. I didn’t think that this show was all that expensive, but I got tipped off that it actually was, so I watched the trailer…yeah, it looks pricey! It also had a long development time. For such a niche premise/genre, I get why this isn’t coming back. Similarly, Netflix cancelled the DC comics-adjacent YA adventure show Dead Boy Detectives after just one season.
Both of those shows were well below my “Obliterated Line”, my (loose estimate) bar for renewal for Netflix shows. What’s “the Obliterated Line”? Let’s ask Google:
Oh, AI Overview, that’s totally wrong. It has nothing to do with CBS. It’s when a Netflix show gets around 46 million hours or less in its first eight weeks, which is what Obliterated got on Netflix but still got cancelled. It’s since predicted The Brothers Sun getting axed too. It isn’t a hard and fast rule…yet. But it looks like it has potential.
Both the second batch of episodes for That ’90s Show and the second season of Unstable (starring Rob Lowe and his son) failed to make the charts this year, thus they’re not coming back for another season. (Reminder: a “DNB” stands for ‘Dog Not Barking” my term for any show or film that doesn’t make any of the ratings charts that we track, find an explainer here.) Netflix also cancelled two underperforming real estate shows, Buying London and Buying Beverly Hills. And Blood of Zeus is ending after its third season. All were DNBs.
Disney cancelled The Acolyte, but I’ve written a bunch about that show recently. Disney needs to figure out how to make Star Wars shows, and I see little sign that they’ve made the changes, internally, to do that. Disney also cancelled Renegade Nell, which I thought was an expensive miss at the time, and What If…? will end after its third season.
Prime Video cancelled My Lady Jane, which didn’t make any ratings charts, and American Rust, another DNB. Both are flops of the year candidates for Prime Video.
Hulu cancelled two of their perennial flops, UnPrisoned and Life & Beth. Frankly, I’m surprised either made it to a second season. But Hulu smartly cancelled Black Cake after just one season, which is a bit of an anomaly for them, but I’m guessing we’ll see more of this going forward.
Paramount+ cancelled Halo, which I just wrote about in my first half-of-the-year recap.
In perhaps the least surprising news of the issue, Max cancelled Velma, a show no one seemed to like, on both the political left and right, a rare combo. They also cancelled their Pretty Little Liars reboot (which had two different titles), but whatever it was called, neither season made the Nielsen or Samba TV charts. Same goes for both seasons of Clone High.
In what might be the surprise of the quarter, Apple TV+ cancelled Time Bandits after one season. Just one! Apple TV+ rarely does that, but this show was expensive, didn’t make the charts, and garnered negative publicity.
Finally, Peacock cancelled the reality show Couple to Throuple, one of their flops of the first half of the year.
Shows That Are Ending After “Long” Runs
We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out…
- What streamer is still renewing unpopular shows…
- A “bold” experiment that’s coming to streaming…
- What TV show has a DVD set coming this December…
- All the bubble shows and edge cases…
- Disney+’s latest removals…
- And a lot more…
…please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. If you’d like to read more about why you should subscribe, please read these posts about the Streaming Ratings Report, why it matters, why you need it, and why we cover streaming ratings best.
