Earlier this month, I laid out the contract math on Netflix renewals. Since the costs of casting and showrunning significantly increase from season to season, they prefer producing low-budget, limited-run series.
Eric Seufert did a great follow up with a piece that adds the demand side: Netflix' recommendation engine runs the same calculation. Routing a user to a new series extracts more economic value than returning them to a known one:
A fan who loved Season 1 comes back for Season 2 on their own, so that slot mostly buys a view Netflix would have gotten anyway, whereas the same slot spent on a new title surfaces something the viewer would not have found alone and spreads their attachment across more of the catalog, which means higher incremental engagement and lower churn risk.