Entertainment

Netflix’s Biggest Shows Are Officially Losing Viewers, and the Reason Is Painfully Obvious

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Netflix is home to some of the most popular shows in streaming history, including its originals like Stranger Things or adaptations of beloved animated series like Avatar: The Last Airbender or One Piece. It’s also notorious for how it treats certain shows, with breakout hits often canceled without warning. Some Netflix subscribers have also expressed their frustration that certain shows get canceled while others seem to continue without any issue (read: Emily in Paris). However, Netflix is now facing another major issue with its shows, and it’s entirely the streamer’s own making.

A new report from Bloomberg shows a stark difference in viewership between the debut season of a Netflix original and its second season. Season 2 of One Piece lost over 30% of its audience, while Season 2 of Beef fell a staggering 70%. Perhaps the biggest indicator that Netflix’s status isn’t what it used to be is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which saw a 60% drop in viewership just a week after its premiere. The problem isn’t quality, as most of these series have received higher ratings in their second seasons than in their debuts. So what’s causing these massive drop-offs in viewership? The answer is simple.

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The Delay Between Seasons Is Affecting Netflix’s Viewership Numbers

STRANGER THINGS, Noah Schnapp, ‘Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up’, (Season 5, Episode 508, aired Dec 31, 2025). photo: ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Image via Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection

After Bloomberg’s report dropped, writer/director Matthew A. Cherry ​​​​​​laid out a simple truth on Twitter: the years-long gap between seasons is eroding people’s interest in Netflix’s shows. It’s not hard to argue Cherry’s point, as new installments of Netflix originals seem to be taking longer to come out. Both Beef and One Piece premiered in 2023, meaning that it took three years for a new season to drop. While other elements like the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike of 2023 impact production, Netflix is also relying solely on the faith of its subscribers for viewership, and that faith is starting to wear thin.

Another side effect of the seasonal gap is that audiences’ opinions on certain series begin to shift, and sometimes not for the better. Stranger Things is a great example of this, as the gap between seasons widened, resulting in a re-evaluation of what was once a beloved series. Many felt Stranger Things would have been better served as a miniseries, while others felt that its embrace of ’80s pop culture was stagnating actual pop culture. Other fans felt that the show extending its episodes to feature length didn’t do much for the story, leading to a mixed reception for the series finale, “The Upside Down.” In many ways, this was a harbinger of things to come for Netflix.













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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
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Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

🔧John McClane

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🎭Ethan Hunt

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01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





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02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





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03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





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04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





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05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





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06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





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07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





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08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





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09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





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10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





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Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

Rambo

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Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

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Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

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John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

Ethan Hunt

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Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

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Netflix’s Binge Model is Outdated

Netflix has another issue to contend with beyond its lengthy production gaps: its binge model has grown outdated. When it first launched, the idea of watching a single season of television in a day was a great hook. Now, most people are championing longer seasons rather than the 8 episodes Netflix usually allots for its original series. Other streamers like Prime Video and Disney+ have made a habit out of weekly releases and ended up edging Netflix out of the limelight. Cosmopolitan entertainment editor Tamara Fuentes also pointed out in an interview with TheWrap that while other streamers have found a clear identity, Netflix remains hard to pin down.

“Netflix often found its identity via the hit show at the time. It is like they are trying to figure out that formula again — trying to see what the next big thing can be — but they don’t often lean into what they find as success.”

If Netflix wants to reclaim its crown in the Streaming Wars, it needs to switch up both its production strategy and its approach to releasing original television. Netflix is still capable of making hits, as anyone who’s seen KPop Demon Hunters or The Boroughs can confirm. But it’s clear that time is not on its side, and those in charge should embrace change rather than remain on a sinking ship.

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