There seems to be a couple new Netflix Original Series season hitting the streaming service every week, often making it a Sisyphean task for fans to keep track of them all. Netflix is in the business of making hit shows, and has managed to do so by allowing most of their television shows to have an automatic second season to work out the kinks. However, fans were upset when the content giant cancelled Baz Luhrmann’s expensive series The Get Down after one season. The unprecedented move left fans shaken, especially those of the sci-fi series Sense8, which has yet to be renewed for a third season.
Well, if the Netflix CEO has his way, fans might have reasons to be worried. Reed Hastings told CNBC on Wednesday:
“Our hit ratio is way too high right now. So, we’ve canceled very few shows… I’m always pushing the content team: We have to take more risk; you have to try more crazy things. Because we should have a higher cancel rate overall… you get some winners that are just unbelievable winners, like 13 Reasons Why. It surprised us. It’s a great show, but we didn’t realize just how it would catch on.”
Netflix has always played coy about what the actual numbers are for their shows, but Hastings does have a point. Honestly, do we really need another season of Flaked?
Hastings also paid lip service to the fact that they’ve kept their base price at $7.99 for eight years, and still managed to throw a little shade at Amazon. While admitting that it is “scary,” Hastings has his reasons for thinking that the two can coexist.
“If we try to out-Amazon Amazon, then that’s a losing battle. So what we have to do is be the specialty play. We are trying to be Starbucks, and they are trying to be Walmart.”
Capitalist burn.
(Via Vulture)
