Stranger Things Saved Netflix?
Was Stranger Things to Netflix what Kate Bush was to Max?
When is losing 1 million customers good news? When you thought you were going to lose 2 million. That was the word from Netflix this week, when the streaming platform released second quarter numbers. The details were that the streamer lost 970,000 more subscribers in 2022’s second quarter, but managed to dodge the 2 million subscriber loss the company was projecting. And why was the number cut in half? Apparently Stranger Things may have spared Netflix a much bigger loss.
As reported by Deadline, in the wake of the Q2 report, Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings was pleased with the news that his streaming service hadn’t fallen quite as far as predicted. Along with praising the performance of Stranger Things, the Netflix co-CEO likewise said Ozark was one of the streamer’s biggest winners. Still, asked if there was any one factor that stopped Netflix from losing bigger, Hastings responded, “if there was a single thing we might say Stranger Things.“
Of course, that may not be the most shocking assessment. There are good reasons for the fourth season of Stranger Things to hit harder than normal for Netflix. Not only has the show long been one of the streamer’s biggest success stories but by the time the fourth season finally premiered at the end of May, fans had suffered through a three year drought from new episodes — the longest break between seasons of the series so far. Add to that the $30 million per episode Netflix paid for the fourth season, and it becomes clear just how huge it proved to be for the streamer’s gains; or, at least, for its lack of expected losses.
This is only speculation, but if Stranger Things really is the reason Netflix performed better than expected, well… if Stranger Things was to Netflix’s second quarter what Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was to Sadie Sink’s Max, then Netflix’s third quarter may end up looking more like Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson. Why would we make that kind of doom and gloom prediction?
Well as Stranger Things fans will no doubt recall, Netflix didn’t release all of the series’ fourth season at once. The final two episodes of season 4 were released on July 1. The final day of 2022’s second quarter was June 30, meaning that if there were subscriber holdouts waiting until Stranger Things season 4 was done to cancel, then they have or will do it in the beginning of the third quarter. And if Stranger Things was the “single thing” that stopped things looking as bad for the streamer as they feared, then what’s stopping those subscribers from canceling now that they’ve run up that hill? Sure, assuming they enjoyed season 4 they’ll want to see season 5, but there’s no reason for them to subscribe for all those months in-between unless Netflix gives them a new reason to stick around. Most of the big projects Netflix is promoting now are standalone films like The Gray Man and Day Shift, not binge-able time sinks like Stranger Things.
