Indian broadcasters are pouring money into reality TV. Netflix's collapsing second seasons show why

**Rachel Varghese** (0:01)
Netflix's binge model is broken. Let me explain. In 2023, when the live-action version of Japanese manga and anime, One Piece, aired on Netflix, I finished watching the whole thing in a single sitting. I was obsessed. I hyped it up to everyone I knew for weeks and even rewatched some of my favorite episodes more than twice. The fantasy settings, fun visuals and the incredibly well-choreographed fight scenes lived in my mind rent-free, as the kids would say. But when season 2 came around this March, I didn't even hear about it until someone mentioned it kind of offhandedly in a conversation a couple of weeks ago. I asked them if it was any good and they said yes, that I should watch it. I made a mental note to binge it some weekend and then I forgot.
Turns out, this was not just a me problem. One Piece was one of Netflix's most watched shows in 2023 But then, Bloomberg reported just a few days ago, that in 2026, its second season had lost just over 30% of its audience despite positive reviews. That may sound bad, but it only starts to sound worse when you also hear that among Netflix's big returning shows of this year, One Piece was actually one of the better performers. Some other shows lost as much as 70% of their audience. And of course, for Netflix, that is a problem. Because the number of people returning to shows is a core part of engagement. How long people watch and whether they finish what they start, in modern Hollywood, that's the number that matters. Because engaged subscribers are the ones who do not cancel. Right now, the numbers suggest that Netflix, the biggest streaming service in the world, is struggling to hold on to its viewers' attention, while also losing it to free platforms like YouTube. It's struggling enough that it's now rethinking some of the very ideas it was built on, like always on-demand content and ads.
A growing number of analysts also think that the culprit is the very thing that made Netflix, Netflix, the binge model. Now, Netflix itself has not admitted it. And in fact, its content chief has gone on record to say that there is no data that proves weekly releases work better, and that binging, in fact, is a better experience for viewers. But look at what the company has been doing lately. A WSJ exclusive last week reported that the company was considering always on live channels and streaming bundles, which is, in effect, a resurrection of cable TV, the very thing that it had set out to kill.
Meanwhile, in India, another experiment is already showing early signs of success. A reality show that airs almost every night at 8pm sharp, just like it used to be on TV. And recently, it even cracked Netflix's global top 10 The last couple of weeks have shown that there is a lot going wrong at the world's largest streamer. But also, that Indian television may have at least one of the answers Netflix is looking for.
Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from The Ken. I'm your host, Rachel Varghese, and every day of the week, my co-host, Snigdha Sharma and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wednesday, the 15th of July.
One Piece was not the only show that saw this steep dip in numbers. The Bloomberg Report also said that the second season of Beef, an anthology series about people stuck in feuds, saw a drop of about 70%.
Also, the live-action version of the animated show, Avta the Last Airbender, saw a 60% dip in viewership in the first week of its second season as well. Many consumers online and analysts have pointed to a few reasons and I'm sure they are quite relatable to any of us who has watched anything on Netflix. One reason is the incredibly long waits between seasons. I'm sure that most of us are familiar with the jokes about how the child actors on Stranger Things barely look like children anymore after the show took 9 years to finish 5 seasons. The second is also another one that personally hits close to home. The studio is so famous for cancelling new shows pretty adeptly, often leaving them on cliffhangers. Which has kind of just taught users to not commit to new shows as they release, and wait until the series concludes naturally or watch it only if it ends satisfactorily despite a sudden cancellation. But many analysts are now also of the belief that the deeper cause is the binge model itself. The thing that had differentiated Netflix in the start. The model drops every episode in a series at once, the show gets a weekend or two of excitement, and then silence for 2 or 3 years while the next season stays in the works.