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catterbu's avatar

A couple thoughts on why 22 episode seasons do not make as much sense in the Streaming Era:

1. The point about shows getting their bump in the first 45 days mostly makes sense within the context of dropping all episodes of once. I would be curious to read if you think weekly drops are different. An 8 episode weekly release vs. a 16 episode weekly release literally means twice as many weeks with people tuning into the show, possibly generating more buzz and definitely bringing people back to the platform for a longer time period.

2. I wonder about trying to do two 8 episode drops a year. I believe Netflix did this with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I do not know what the numbers were (obviously), but this would give a series two 45 day buzz windows, even for shows that drop them all at once.

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Derek Kompare's avatar

After about a century of broadcast storytelling (going back to network radio in the 1920s-50s), 25-30 years of original cable series, and a decade-ish of streaming, plus models from other countries, we now have a vast array of successful, and unsuccessful, examples of different configurations of episodes and seasons. With all that out there, and the massive creative and financial challenges of the industry today, I would hope that there’s plenty of incentive to continue experimenting to find a sweet spot that would allow creators a bit more space to let shows grow, studios a steadier supply and revenue stream, streamers and advertisers more predictable audience levels, and viewers more opportunities to get comfortable with characters and premises they enjoy.

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