Your favorite Netflix show may not be global enough to survive

Netflix may be the largest streaming service, but it is not clear how the company makes its programming decisions. The company doesn’t report numbers on its shows outside of selective (and carefully-worded) statistics and top 10 lists, and shows live or die based on criteria that largely isn’t public. Beloved shows that seem successful, like the streamer’s widely adored revival of Baby-Sitters Club, can be abruptly canceled, and it’s impossible to know if your favorite show will go the distance. The following is a list of Baby-Sitters Club showrunner Rachel Shukert, it’s just as hard for the people making the show.

Vulture is given an uncommonly honest interview by Shukert in which he gives his post-mortem. Baby-Sitters ClubIts cancellation in March, after it had completed a highly-reviewed second series. According to Shukert, what individual showrunners know about Netflix’s metrics is frustratingly limited to their own shows, which makes it difficult to know what the company is looking for.

“When you only have your numbers in a vacuum and you don’t know the numbers of anything else, you don’t know what you’re trying to hit,” said Shukert. “You don’t know what numbers other comparable shows are hitting. Netflix will provide context, although it is not clear what the numbers are for your season. You’re flying a little blind.”

This is why Shukert claims she knows Shukert’s company. It is looking for, which is shows that drive subscriber growth — in other words, international hits in regions outside of North America, where everyone who is likely to have a Netflix subscription already does.

“For this show that has a fine viewership but is not a monster hit, but it’s beloved by fans … does that matter? I don’t know,” Shukert said. “I think we had the bad luck to come out at about the same time as Squid Game, which showed them how crazy numbers could get.”

For anyone interested in learning more about Netflix’s cancellations and the impact on different shows, this interview will be a valuable read. The cancellation of Baby-Sitters Club isn’t merely another case of a fan-favorite show gone too soon, it’s also one of the few shows that catered to a young female audience in an environment where that’s become all too rare — and maybe that’s because they now exist in an environment that doesn’t allow them to succeed.