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Screamingholt t1_j5svlmn wrote

I feel the need to Chime in with The Expanse. It was popular enough with fans that NF picked it up for season 2 but then decided to drop it. Where Amazon picked it up and ran with it for another 2.5 seasons. Sooo tell me how this was an "unsuccessful show" as I suspect there may be a difference of opinion there

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unskilledplay t1_j5v3r88 wrote

The Expanse was originally a SyFy network show. Netflix just paid for streaming rights. After season 2, SyFy cancelled the show. Amazon picked it up and produced the later seasons. Netflix never "cancelled" the Expanse as they didn't produce the show.

It's fair to assume that Amazon had absolutely no interest in letting Netflix acquire streaming rights for seasons 3, 4 and 5 and Netflix had no interest in putting up only the first 2 seasons when everyone who gets into the show would have to move over to Prime Video to continue watching it.

When a show is cancelled early, rights holders shop it around. It's possible Netflix and others had interest in acquiring the show. If they did, they were outbid by Amazon.

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Screamingholt t1_j5vwg7x wrote

Huh, I think I may be getting things jumbled. I think it was the noise made after season 2, when yeah Syfy dropped it and Prime picked it up I was thinking of. Derp.

I remember something about there being a 30 year gap between where events are in the series, vs the next point in book. Sooo maybe in a couple more years it could pick up again.

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CloakerJosh t1_j5syqnj wrote

I don't have the stats, obviously. Nor do I know directly how Netflix measure "success".

But, if I were to hazard a guess, I reckon it'd look something like this:

  • Netflix knows how much a series cost them to make and/or license/distribute
  • Netflix knows the overall produced runtime of these shows
  • Netflix knows how much of the show was watched, and by how many unique users

Based on these types of stats (and many others), they'd basically be able to boil down the "success" of a show by creating a measure that expressed Dollars Spent Per Minutes Watched.

Suppose that when you look at the economics of some of these brilliant shows (I loved The Expanse), you find out that the Dollars Spent Per Minutes Watched puts it in the top 10%. Suppose they decide this means this show is "Unsuccessful".

I'm just a random internet dickhead, but I figure it is basically an advanced application of this or something similar.

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Screamingholt t1_j5t7umd wrote

Sadly I can totally agree with that. It probably is exactly that sorta cold blooded math. I mean they are a business entity seeking profit after all. Further to that I wonder if people signing up and immediately watch show X would be a boost to said show.

Perhaps that is why Amazon stuck with as they weighted such a metric differently.

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