Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged that second seasons of the streamer’s shows tend to draw less well than debut seasons. But, he said, it’s not as bad as a recently prevalent narrative would make it seem.
The streamer also touted some early results from the addition of video podcasts to the platform in its quarterly earnings report — but declined to divulge any specific numbers in a large-scale data release for the first half of the year.
The season two problem narrative was sparked by a recent Bloomberg story detailing steep viewing declines for several shows in their second seasons, among them Beef, The Four Seasons and One Piece. Sarandos didn’t dispute those findings — which came from Netflix’s own publicly released weekly top 10 lists — but said that “in aggregate, we’re not seeing any material change in our second season viewing compared…
