zlacker

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-slow-death-of-hollywo...

> [Netflix] now routinely ends shows after their second season, even when they’re still popular. Netflix has learned that the first two seasons of a show are key to bringing in subscribers—but the third and later seasons don’t do much to retain or win new subscribers.. Ending a show after the second season saves money, because showrunners who oversee production tend to negotiate a boost in pay after two years.. Netflix’s strategy is straightforward market power exploitation.. cancelling shows that subscribers like, so it won’t have to pay creators the amount they would otherwise be able to get for making good commercially successful art.

> [Pre 1990s] The Paramount Consent Decrees and the Fin-syn rules were designed to break creative industries into a three-tiered structure: production, distribution, and retailing. Producers were prohibited from vertically integrating into the traditional distribution business. That way, there are fewer conflicts of interest in the content business; producers had to create high quality work, and if they didn’t, distributors could choose to sell someone else’s art. Policy removed power as the mechanism of competition, and emphasized art..

> We should aim to restore open markets for content again. This means separating out the industry into production, distribution, and retailing. We should probably ban predatory pricing so Netflix isn’t dumping into the market. And we should probably begin a radical decentralization of chains and studios. This is all possible. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.

>>walter+(OP)
A lot of shows go on too long. Andor, the best show of the year, had 2 perfect seasons.

>>softwa+43
Competitive markets provide natural death of weak content, without premature euthanasia of strong content. With on-demand streaming, viewers can stop watching if/when a show deteriorates in quality. Some shows have maintained relatively high quality over multiple seasons.

  The Americans (6 seasons, 75 episodes)
  Battlestar Galactica (4 seasons, 88 episodes)
  Borgen (3 seasons, 30 episodes)
  Burn Notice (7 seasons, 111 episodes)
  The Shield (7 seasons, 88 episodes)
  Slow Horses (5 seasons, 30 episodes)
  WestWorld (4 seasons, 36 episodes)
  The Wire (5 seasons, 60 episodes)

>>walter+39
Star Trek: Voyager(7 seasons, 172 episodes) And they still rushed it at the end.

>>softwa+43
AFAIK Andor was supposed to be 5 seasons, and the story for seasons 2-5 was squashed into season 2, because the production was too long, because that's how it goes these days in streaming.

>>jakubm+wb
It was indeed originally conceived as 5 seasons, but the creator Tony Gilroy has consistently said shortening it was his decision because the production was too long and taxing:

"We were halfway through shooting season 1, coming through Covid, and the monumental size of the show, the effort, and everything else was just dawning on us. We realized that I didn't have enough calories to do it, and Diego's face couldn't take the timing, because it just takes too long to make it."

https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/star-wars-tv-shows/...

"By that point, the work that was required to make the show, at its minimum, was just dazzlingly blinding to look at. And Diego was like ‘Oh my god, we told them we’d do five years.’ Nobody, if we were gonna do it like this, you couldn’t physically do it. It was just impossible."

https://screenrant.com/andor-tony-gilroy-original-five-seaso...

>>walter+(OP)
More different shows each with fewer seasons seems better to me. I suppose if you compare to YouTube it seems that view preference is for both a lot of variety and for those shows to have many similar episodes and doing both while maintaining some quality is presumably hard for streaming services.

>>walter+39
Yes but some badly ended, serialized, long running shows have made consumers fairly wary.

After Game of Thrones, I think the average consumer is less likely to dive in feet first without knowing the show runners have a clear plan.

>>hglase+dg
If HBO could make a new season of Game of Thrones every year, I don't see what is so complicated about Andor's production.

>>jakubm+Up
I think they cared a lot more about the cinematographic aspect and its connection to the story[0].

[0] https://www.pushing-pixels.org/2025/05/20/cinematography-of-...