Netflix makes decisions on which shows to renew or cancel based on performance vs. cost. The streamer’s latest data dump gives a glimpse into the numbers behind some of its highest profile cancelations.
The company launched its latest What We Watched report, which gives viewership numbers for shows between July and December 2024.
KAOS, the Greek mythology comedy starring Jeff Goldblum, was Netflix’s most-watched canceled series in the second half of last year.
The series scored 20.3M views in that six-month period. KAOS, which comes from The End of the F*cking World creator Charlie Covell, started off relatively strong with 3.4M views in its first couple of days before adding 5.9M views in its first full week on the service between September 2 and 8.
However, it only added another 10M views over the next five and a half month, highlighting that it didn’t have a massive long-tail, and was presumably relatively expensive.
For context, Obliterated was canceled after its first season with 27M between November 30 and the end of the year but only added 13.3M in the first half of last year.
Elsewhere, the second season of Rob Lowe comedy Unstable found 3.1M views in the six month period. The series, which also stars Lowe’s son John Owen Lowe, premiered its second season on August 1 and was axed in October.
Also on the comedy front, the third installation of That ’90s Show was canceled in October, having launched Part 3 on August 22. Over its six month period, the multi-cam comedy drew 5.6M views.
Perhaps most surprising was how few people watched the third season of Tina Fey-produced comedy Girls5eva, which it took over from Peacock after it was canceled by the NBCU streamer.
The third season of the show, which starred Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell and Renee Elise Goldsberry, premiered on March 14 2024. Through June, the show was only received 1.3M views. It didn’t pick up in the second half of the year with the third season only adding 300,000 views, which was lower than the 600,000 that the first season received and the 400,000 that the second season scored.
