- Netflix's co-CEO Ted Sarandos told Bloomberg that the company has "never canceled a successful show."
- The streamer has been criticized for ending shows like "1899" too soon.
Netflix is defending its history of TV cancellations.
"We have never canceled a successful show," Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently told Bloomberg after Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw said there are "constantly people outraged about shows getting canceled."
"A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget," Sarandos said. "The key to it is you have to be able to talk to a small audience on a small budget and a large audience at a large budget. If you do that well, you can do that forever."
Netflix has been criticized for canceling shows too quickly.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of Netflix's animated series "Bojack Horseman," slammed Netflix in 2019 after it canceled "Tuca and Bertie," which he produced, after one season, despite glowing reviews from critics.
"When we started on 'BoJack,' it was understood that the Netflix model was to give shows time to find an audience and to build that audience," Bob-Waksberg told the Los Angeles Times.
"I think it's a shame that they seem to have moved away from that model," he added.
Earlier that year, Deadline reported that Netflix sees little value in shows that exceed 30 episodes in total, which typically equates to three seasons, because they become too expensive and are harder for newer viewers to jump into.
To be fair, Netflix has found success with a number of long-running shows, such as "The Crown," which recently aired its fifth season, and Bob-Waksberg's "Bojack Horseman," which lasted six seasons.
But the company has also canceled plenty of other shows after a few, or even just one, season.
Most recently, it canceled "1899" after one season, despite having a production deal with the show's creators, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, who also created Netflix's "Dark."
The news left fans livid and complaining to the streamer on social media.
In November, "1899" debuted as the No. 2 series on Netflix worldwide, according to Netflix's own weekly charts of its most-watched content. It remained in the top five for several weeks after.
But, if what Sarandos said is true, that's just not good enough.