Studios aren’t necessarily making the decisions that make them the most money, but they are *trying* to make the decisions that make them the most money. That’s where the metrics come in, as they try to make sense of what people will pay for. It’s neither exact, nor a science, but they depend on those numbers for decisions about approving/continuing projects, marketing, etc.
Given all that, it can still be hard to understand studio decisions these days because ten years into the streaming era, no one really understands how to make a lot of money from it. Cable tv was an *awesome* business to be in and so far streaming is a very poor substitute in terms of the money it brings in. Netflix got as big as it is by offering quality content for an absurdly low price for years. The other studios finally realized that streaming was the future and they didn’t want to be at the mercy of Netflix, so they started their own services and practically gave them away at launch. Shareholders loved to hear about millions people subscribing each quarter, but once they realized it’s not adding much to the bottom line, they became less thrilled.
Extremely healthy country doing extremely normal things.Ziggy587 wrote: They shoved those two Dahmer series down America's throat. And I've seen at least one or two other murder / serial killer series or specials being heavily promoted (suggested) when they were new. If you search "serial killer" on NetFlix, you can see that they have a shit ton of original content in the murder or serial killer category.
The 80s comedy cop show Sledge Hammer! ended its first season with the lead character destroying the city by failing to disarm a nuclear warhead. That really tied up all the loose ends, but the show was unexpectedly picked up for a second season. In the next season's premiere they took five seconds to explain that the second season took place five years before the nuclear apocalypseRaging Justice wrote:Personally, if I were a writer, I would write every season finale as a series finale.
Sometimes writers go the other way. The first season of Twin Peaks ends with a ridiculous number of cliffhangers. That's partly because the show is an absurd take on soap operas and so they turned the cliffhanger trope up to 11, but also because they were hoping the network would pick it up to find out what happened next. I doubt that's why it got picked up but it did come back for a second season and they again ended it with a number of outrageous cliffhangers. Nothing was going to save it from the axe that time though.
