Here’s How Long It Takes Netflix To Renew Or Cancel New Shows, On Average

Netflix is known for making fans, show creators and actors, sweat when it comes to renewals or cancellations. Other streaming services don’t usually do this to this extent. Paramount Plus greenlit Halo season 2 before season 1 ever aired. HBO renewed House of the Dragon for season 2 after its pilot. But even with Netflix’s obviously successful series, they really take their time.

With news that The Recruit, a show that had already faded from my memory, was just renewed for season 2 well after release, I figured I’d go through and calculate just how long it takes Netflix to renew series, and how long it takes to cancel them, based on recent, mostly new shows.

Renewed Shows:

• Monster: Premiered October 21, 2022, renewed for season 2 and 3 November 7, 2022 – 17 days
• The Watcher: Premiered October 18, 2022, renewed for season 2 November 7, 2022 – 20 days
• The Recruit: Premiered December 16, 2022, renewed for season 2 January 26, 2023 – 41 days
• Wednesday: Premiered November 23, 2022, renewed for season 2 January 6, 2023 – 45 days
• The Sandman: Premiered August 5, 2022, renewed for season 2 November 3, 2022 – 90 days
• All of Us Are Dead: Premiered January 28, 2022, renewed for season 2 June 6, 2022 – 129 days

Canceled Shows:

• Warrior Nun: Premiered November 10, 2022, cancelled before season 3 on December 13, 2022 – 33 days
• Half Bad: Premiered October 28, 2022, cancelled before season 2 on December 12, 2022 – 45 days
• 1899: Premiered November 17, 2022, cancelled before season 2 on January 2, 2023 – 46 days
• First Kill: Premiered June 10, 2022, cancelled before season 2 on August 3, 2022 – 54 days
• The Midnight Club: Premiered October 7, 2022, cancelled before season 2 on December 1, 2022 – 55 days
• Archive 81: Premiered January 14, 2022, cancelled before season 2 on March 24, 2022 – 69 days

What the data shows is that Netflix more or less never makes instant decisions based on a show’s early performance. In a few cases, they’ve waited only a week or two, but most of the time, they wait well over a month to make a decision one way or another, and we know that Netflix puts a huge amount of weight into the “28 day total” viewing hours stat.

The best way to judge whether or not a show will be renewed or not is pretty simple, you weigh its time spent in the top 10 list and how high it is, against its relative, apparent budget. 1899 performing well then dropping quickly was not enough to offset what was likely an expensive production. That ‘90s Show debuting at #1 and slowly fading probably is enough to renew it, given how cheap the sitcom is to make. But regardless, the absolute fastest we hear about this sort of thing is over two weeks later, and most of the time, you’re waiting a month. So even if a show like Ginny and Georgie seems destined for season 3 as a sure thing, given that it’s been planted at #1 for most of January, these numbers indicate we’ll probably be hearing about renewal in mid-February.

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