Netflix is hitting back at the idea that its original series are suffering a sophomore slump, claiming that it has actually improved the situation.
The streamer has seen a number of shows including Beef, The Four Seasons and A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder returning for their second seasons with lower ratings than their debut runs.
But Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that this is “very common in the industry” and that it has actually improved matters this year.
“We are not seeing any material change in our second season viewing compared to season ones, our second seasons are performing well within our bands of expectation,” Sarandos said on its second quarter earnings call. “Very often we see drop off from season one to season two. It’s very common in the industry, but it’s even more so with us because we launch our shows so big.”
“When we look across the entire portfolio, across all the regions, all the content categories, our season two fall off is actually slightly improved this year relative to last year. Now, of course, you can pick any five data points to tell any story you want, but I’m going to repeat this: our season two fall off is actually slightly improved this year relative to last year,” he added.
As a result of this, Sarandos said it had no plans to change its release strategy and will continue to drop all episodes of a show at once, rather than move to a weekly cadence.
These comments come after it was revealed that the second season of Beef dropped nearly 60% in its first week back with its second season compared to season one, The Four Seasons was down 63% and A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder was down more than 76%.
Sarandos’ comments echo remarks Head of UCAN Scripted Series Jinny Howe made to Deadline last week.
“I think for us, it’s not necessarily something that we understand to be true of our shows,” Howe said about the “sophomore slump” phenomenon, which is not limited to Netflix. “It does feel like we still have many shows like Bridgerton, that was one of the biggest seasons that we’ve had, and it feels like we have been able to grow subsequent seasons of shows, so for us it doesn’t feel like something that we’re overly concerned or focused on.”
