New Delhi: Viewers binge-watched the first seasons of One Piece, Beef and The Night Agent when they were first released on Netflix. But the streaming platform is struggling to keep viewership steady for the second season.
Netflix viewers are not sticking around for six months to over a year to watch the continuation. Even the last seasons of Stranger Things and Squid Game, previously massive hits, could not keep viewers entertained for long.
Netflix’s most-watched series, One Piece, lost more than 30 per cent of its viewership in the second season. While the reason is still unknown, the company is trying to find out why this is happening, Bloomberg reported.
A series of losses
In the first half of the year, Netflix delivered only two hits–His & Hers and the fourth season of Bridgerton, which is bizarre because the streaming platform never depends on one or two shows for its business.
Netflix releases new content at close intervals so that there are multiple hits in every quarter, sometimes even in the same week.
However, after Bridgerton, there were no major hits for four months. The new seasons of Beef and One Piece were supposed to eliminate the dry spell.
According to Bloomberg, views for the second season of Beef dropped more than 70 per cent. Season two of The Night Agent witnessed a fifty per cent decline in viewership, and season three lost another 35 per cent.
Second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of the top-performing series, also suffered a 60 per cent drop in viewership, suggesting that perhaps Netflix should limit its series to one season.
Unlike television, Netflix is losing viewers rapidly. The amount of time subscribers are spending on Netflix has grown less than two per cent.
This has raised concerns among investors—the streaming platform is losing its edge, Bloomberg reported, despite being number one in the market.
Chief Executive Officers Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters wanted to buy Warner Bros Discovery, but investors were not ready for it. The company declined the offer in February this year.
Bloomberg reported that Sarandos and Peters found the bid to be a “rare opportunity,” but investors assumed that Netflix was out of ideas.
Now, the viewership loss is making investors restless.
Netflix no longer reports subscriber figures; however, third-party data analysts reported that growth has slowed in the US. The company tried to grow with acquisitions, but the mission failed. They still believe in absorbing viewers who ditched cable and broadcast for streaming. Netflix started adding more users by making stringent rules and cracking down on shared passwords. Live sports and podcasts are being added to attract more subscribers and increase watch time. Still, the user is watching less.
Even if Netflix is struggling, it is faring better than other streaming platforms. It accounts for half of the most-watched shows.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)