Why Waiting for the Next TV Season Takes So Long Now

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: All Of It – "Why Waiting for the Next TV Season Takes So Long Now"

Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guests: Ben Lindbergh (Senior editor, The Ringer), Rob Arthur (Journalist & Data Scientist)
Air Date: January 12, 2026

---

Overview

This episode of All Of It explores why the wait between TV seasons—especially for streaming and prestige series—has grown dramatically longer in recent years. Host Alison Stewart is joined by Ben Lindbergh and Rob Arthur, who offer insights based on their research and industry analysis, while listeners call in to share their experiences and frustrations. The discussion touches on changes in production schedules, the impact of streaming, industry-wide disruptions, and how these delays alter both content and viewing habits.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The New Normal: Longer Waits Between TV Seasons

• Prestige & Streaming Are the Main Drivers
  • Ben Lindbergh: "It's a little bit of both, but it's primarily reflective, I think, of the shift towards streaming and also to prestige TV in general." (01:50)
• Shows like Stranger Things and The White Lotus are cited as examples, with gaps between seasons now commonly stretching from two to three or more years.
• The move from a set TV calendar to an on-demand streaming model enables and often encourages these longer breaks.

2. Historical Context: Shortening Seasons, Lengthening Gaps

• Trends in Average Season Gaps
  • Rob and Ben discuss data showing a substantial increase in the time between seasons starting around 2000, accelerating in the past five years.
  • Rob Arthur: "What we saw with regardless of what approach we took or what kind of particular genre we looked at, was that there was this massive increase in how long successive seasons were to come out." (04:18)
• Game of Thrones is highlighted as an early and notable example of rising gaps, followed by even more dramatic waits for recent shows.

3. Industry Changes Fueling the Trend

a. Streaming Model

• Streaming platforms "decoupled everything from the calendar," creating less pressure for annual releases (02:18).
• Complete seasons are often filmed and released all at once ("binge drops"), leading to longer periods between new episodes (09:08).

b. Production Scale and Complexity

• Higher production values, more VFX, and "autourist" creators (who write/direct whole seasons themselves) slow down the process (08:02).
• Fewer episodes per season means longer waits for the same amount of content.

c. Scheduling and Talent Conflicts

• Shorter seasons free up actors for other projects, which can lead to further scheduling bottlenecks and delays (08:37).

d. Disruptions & Recent Challenges

• COVID-19, industry strikes (e.g., the 2023 WGA/SAG strikes), and even natural disasters like LA fires caused production to halt, exacerbating trends (10:13).

e. Streamer Consolidation & Downscaling

• As platforms push for profitability over growth, there may be fewer shows overall—but possibly more regular output from those that remain (10:49).

4. Listener Experiences and Strategies

• Waits and Audience Fatigue:
  • Callers mention drifting away from previously beloved series due to long waits.
  • Some stick with shows they consider worth waiting for, such as Bridgerton, Fowda, Tehran, and The Blue Eye.
• Tools to Catch Up:
  • Amanda from Manhattan recommends YouTube recapper "Man of Recaps" as essential for remembering previous plotlines after long hiatuses (11:21).
• Bingeing as a Strategy:
  • One listener texts that discovering shows late and bingeing multiple seasons at once is a "life hack" for avoiding painful waits (20:39).
  • Ben Lindbergh: “I've felt envy for people who've discovered a series I love late, whereas I've had these agonizing, excruciating waits for new episodes.” (20:43)

5. Impact on TV Content and Storytelling

• Shorter seasons and longer gaps can hurt narrative momentum and risk audience drop-off.
• Cliffhangers lose effectiveness when the gap is years instead of months.
  • Ben Lindbergh: “If it goes away for three years, you don't even remember who was hanging on the cliff. Or the character could have fallen off by then.” (15:37)
• Previously, "filler" episodes and "clip shows" kept series present all year, but now viewers get higher quality but less frequent content.

6. The Role of Streaming Business Models

• Churn & Subscriber Retention
  • Streaming companies are closely watching subscriber churn; if people only sign up for one show and then cancel, that's a problem.
  • Strategies include live sports, sitcoms, procedural dramas, and more regular release schedules to keep people subscribed (18:49).
  • Ben Lindbergh: “Netflix is sort of the outlier there where it has a low churn rate... But a lot of other streamers...people just sign up to watch one show and then that show goes away and they cancel.” (19:07)

7. Franchise Building and Staggered Releases

• Increasingly, TV follows the movie industry's approach: building franchises with sequels, prequels, and spin-offs (21:13).
  • Ben Lindbergh: "Anything with name recognition or a built-in audience that can just kind of break through the static..." (21:29)
• Staggering releases within a franchise can also lead to longer waits for individual series.

8. Unique Challenges with Animated Series

• Callers note that animated shows, now made with higher production values and respect, often have especially long production times (22:17).

9. How Viewers Are Adapting

• Patience vs. Plenitude:
  • Ben: "I almost feel like I don't mind waiting for anything now just because there's so much that I never really feel the absence of any particular thing." (23:28)
• Viewers often fill the gap with other shows and media, making the waits less painful.

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Ben Lindbergh: “Stranger Things… the gap between season one and season two... just a little more than a year. Then it went to almost two years, then almost three years, then almost three and a half years between seasons four and five.” (03:04)
• Rob Arthur: “It was kind of getting longer for a while since 2000, but in the last maybe five or so years, it's really taken a turn towards these huge, huge gaps, in particular the prestige show seasons.” (04:18)
• Caller Amanda: “Whether it's a long gap or a short gap, [‘Man of Recaps’ on YouTube] is like my go to...If you're not watching the Pit, I don't know what you're doing.” (11:21)
• Ben Lindbergh: “It can make it difficult to capture or increase your audience… people are out of the rhythm of watching that show. It seems like an ancient memory.” (14:16)
• Ben Lindbergh: “If it goes away for three years, you don't even remember who was hanging on the cliff.” (15:37)
• Ben Lindbergh on premiering shows like The Night Manager: “The first season aired when Barack Obama was president. So I remember liking season one, but I remember almost nothing about it beyond that because a lot has happened since.” (03:40)
• Rob Arthur: “Perhaps TV streamers are reacting to these longer breaks, maybe finding that it does lead to loss of interest over time. But that's speculation on my part because we just don't have the data.” (18:07)
• Ben Lindbergh (on the binge-late strategy): "That's a great life hack." (20:39)

---

Notable Timestamps

• 01:50: Ben outlines the primary causes behind longer gaps between seasons.
• 03:04: The case study of Stranger Things’ increasingly lengthy season gaps.
• 04:18: Rob summarizes the research and visual data points on the trend.
• 08:02 - 08:42: Breakdown of how production and scheduling have changed on prestige streaming shows.
• 10:13 - 10:49: Discussion of industry disruptions like the pandemic and strikes.
• 15:27 - 15:37: Why cliffhangers don’t work after years-long hiatuses.
• 20:39 - 20:49: The "wait and binge" viewer strategy and guest reactions.
• 23:28 - 24:12: Ben and Rob reflect on adapting to abundance rather than waiting anxiously for single shows.

---

Conclusion

The podcast paints a vivid picture of a transformed TV landscape: higher production values, fewer episodes, and much longer gaps between seasons—all intensified by the demands of streaming, industry shocks, and evolving business models. Both data and anecdotes highlight growing tension between fans’ desires for more of what they love and an industry still navigating volatility, costs, and technology. While nostalgia lingers for the old annual TV rhythm, new viewer strategies and a glut of content mean that—paradoxically—even as the waits drag on, there's always something to watch.

---

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Let's talk wait times for our favorite shows to return. Look, it isn't you. You're not impatient. The wait between seasons of our favorite shows has grown much longer. After the White Lotus wrapped up season two in Italy, fans waited two years for the anthology series to land in Thailand after almost three years passed between the season four finale and season five premiere of Stranger Things in November. And Netflix subscribers just learned that some of last year's hit series like Wednesday and Ginny and Georgia might not return until 2027. An article in the Ringer wrote about this. And here with me now to understand what's going on with these wait times is senior editor Ben Lindberger, who covers culture and sports. Hey, Ben.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Hey, Good to talk to you.

[Alison Stewart]

Also joining me is journalist and data scientist Rob Arthur, who writes about sports, movies, criminal justice, among other subjects. Hey, Ben. Rob. Sorry. Hi, Rob. Sorry about that. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What shows have you been willing to wait for? What shows had you lose interest? What shows benefited from the longer wait time? Which ones floundered? How have you seen wait times change, the way shows are developed? When it finally returned, did you come back to your show or did you lose interest? Our Phone number is 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. You can call or text us or you can reach out on social media at Olivet wnyc. All right, Ben, is this a streaming issue or is this a TV issue?

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's a little bit of both, but it's primarily reflective, I think, of the shift towards streaming and also to prestige.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

TV in general, because you can see that the uptick for season starts right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Around the turn of the century when TV started aspiring maybe to higher artistic.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Values, higher production values, a lot more vfx. There's always a backup for people who.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Do the visual effects for these things, but also the shift from linear TV.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

To streaming kind of decoupled everything from the calendar. So there's no longer really an annual release schedule.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's just that there needs to be a constant stream of stuff and the faster the better. But if you're sort of staggering releases.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Then you can get by with some things taking years to return.

[Alison Stewart]

Just anecdotally, when did you first notice a really big gap in seasons, Ben?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Gosh, I think we wrote our article inspired by Severance returning for its second season after about a three year gap. Stranger Things, which you cited earlier, is.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

A pretty Good example, because you can sort of see the lengthening of the inter season time with each successive season. So the gap between season one and.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Season two of Stranger Things was just a little more than a year.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Then it went to almost two years, then almost three years, then almost three and a half years between seasons four and five, the final one, and that's with roughly the same number of episodes per season.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And Stranger Things is a little unusual in that it was originally conceived as a miniseries and of course it became.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

A huge hit that had bigger budgets and broader scope as it went on.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But that is sort of reflective of.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

How things have gone in general.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It can get much worse than that, though.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Actually.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just this past Sunday, the second season of the Night Manager, the Tom Hiddleston Olivia Colman spy series, premiered on the.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

US On Prime Video.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The first season aired when Barack Obama was president.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

So I remember liking season one, but I remember almost nothing about it beyond that because a lot has happened since.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Wow.

[Alison Stewart]

So, Rob, for this piece, you included two graphs. One showing the average time in days between the starts of successive seasons by year. And then there's a another that shows the gaps between the air dates of the last episode of one season and the first episode of the next. We're going to put this up on.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Our Instagram stories at Olivet wnyc so there's a visual people can take a look at it.

[Alison Stewart]

Tell us about the data you included.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

And some of your most interesting findings.

[Ira Plato]

Sure.

[Rob Arthur]

Yeah. So we we wanted to collect data on a wide variety of shows and not just focus only on streaming or only on linear tv. So we grabbed as much as we could at just omitting some minor shows, some minor categories that people might not be as interested in or don't fit into this as well, like game shows and things like that, kids shows. But what we saw with regardless of what approach we took or what kind of particular genre we looked at, was that there was this massive increase in how long successive seasons were to come out. So whether that was from the beginning of one season to the beginning of the next, or the end to the beginning of the next, regardless, we were seeing big increases. And Ben's already sort of touched on some of the reasons, but it's been really exponential in the last few years. That really stuck out to me. So it was kind of getting longer for a while since 2000, but in the last maybe five or so years, it's really taken a turn towards these huge, huge gaps between in particular the prestige show seasons. And that is interesting. And A real change from what it was pretty much throughout TV history until recently.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

When did you first notice the big gaps in seasons?

[Rob Arthur]

Rob yeah, I think for me it was maybe Game of Thrones, which was sort of an early example of this going on. It's still relatively short by today's standards, but at the time it seemed like I was a big fan of the show and I really wanted to go straight from one season into the next. And it was taking longer and longer and longer the longer the show went on. And so I just remember feeling hungry for the next season and not getting it.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

The wait between seasons of our favorite shows has grown much longer. The Ringer senior editor Ben Lindbergh and journalist and data science Rob Arthur joined me to explain why and how it's changed using viewing habits. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What shows have you been willing to wait for? Which shows had you lose interest? Our Phone numbers are 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC Lana is calling in from Brooklyn. Lana, thanks for taking the time to call, all of it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, yeah, so really interesting conversation. I was just wondering, Bridgerton, I'm a huge Bridgerton fan, wondering, like, how long.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

It is till the next season and.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Why there's so much time in between.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Do you have any tips for her?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Ben well, we are seeing one trend which is toward essentially prestige jurors, which.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Is, you know, bringing back old school.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Procedurals, but having sort of a prestige.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Production value so that you can kind of churn these things out a bit faster.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So there are some exceptions to what we're talking about here where, you know.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

You look at Slow Horses or the Bear or Only Murders in the Building, and these have been coming out on this annual cadence, which I think viewers really appreciate.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You also see something like the Pit.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Which just returned for its second season almost exactly a year after its first season. And that's by modern standards, actually a lot of episodes, episodes in a season.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Too, but it's more old school.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

You know, it's a medical drama. And these are the things that used to be popular on linear tv, old.

[Ben Lindbergh]

School, you know, broadcast or cable.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

And now the streamers are trying to make it work for them, essentially. But yeah, when you have a big hit like a Bridgerton, that's just it's.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Such a huge swing, you know, it's.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Coming back soon, right? Later this month. It's been off since mid 2024.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So that's a fairly long time, but a lot shorter than some of the Examples that we're c here. Another thing I think it makes sense.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

To mention, you know, there are sort.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Of autourist creators of prestige tv.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Often maybe they're writing the whole thing themselves.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There isn't a writer's room that slows things down. There's a less sort of modular production schedule when it comes to streaming.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

So often the streamers will wait until an entire season is out, see how it performs, and then greenlight a second season and the whole thing is written and shot before it comes out. Whereas in the past, the writers would be scrambling and writing the last episodes of a season while the beginning of that season was airing. So it was just kind of constantly in production.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That doesn't happen so much either now. And you have actors who can do many more projects because they're not tied.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Down to one show that's airing 26 episodes a season. And that's all they do, which is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Good because we get to see actors in more roles, but also bad from.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

A scheduling perspective because they're constantly conflicts that you have to work out.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Plus, we're seeing fewer episodes per season. You might think that would speed things up.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

But again, there's just more care money lavished on each one and occasionally binge drops. And that has the effect of lengthening the absence. Right. Because if every new episode of a season drops all at once, then you're.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Waiting a longer time to get the.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Fresh batch of episodes, whereas in the past it would be spread out over the course of many months.

[Alison Stewart]

Rob, a lot of people in the TV industry have pointed towards streaming for causing this trend. Help us understand exactly how streaming has affected the production process.

[Rob Arthur]

Well, I think before streaming, there was, and Ben kind of touched on this, there was this notion of an annual calendar to making a TV show where you would come up with a pilot, you would develop the episodes, you would sell it, and all of that started over again the next year. And so because of that, there was a very precise cadence to it that had to be enforced. And that's how we ended up with a very particular kind of annual release schedule. But streaming doesn't have that same kind of. Same kind of calendar. Right. It's more about the constant churn of subscribers into and out of a streaming service. And so they, like Ben said, they're more hungry for a constant stream of content whenever it may come out. And that's really changed how. How we make tv.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Another factor, in very recent years, there have been some natural disasters that have sidelined television production. Obviously, the pandemic had A huge impact.

[Ben Lindbergh]

On these production timeline.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

The L. A fires, the actors and writers strikes in 2023.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So all of that, I think, celebrated and exacerbated these trends that we are.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Already seeing, but they're not sufficient to explain it. You know, now that the. The backups in the production pipeline have kind of cleared out, we'll see whether that lingers and that's sort of the new normal or we actually do see some speeding up.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There's also the fact that we're seeing.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Some downsizing in streaming and spending decreases. And we're going from peak tv where you had scripted series airing every year.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And most of the streamers are cutting.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Back because Wall street has prioritized profits more so than just growth or subscriber counts.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so, you know, maybe if we see fewer shows, the shows that remain.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Will come out a little more regularly. But that remains to be seen.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Let's take some calls. Amanda is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Amanda, thanks for calling all of it.

[Amanda (Caller)]

Hi, Allison. It's great to talk to you again, you and your guests. I wanted to add to the conversation on YouTube, the YouTuber, man of recaps. He is amazing in recapping seasons when I'm. Whether it's a long gap or a short gap, he's like my go to. If I don't have enough time to rewatch the first, second, third season of whatever show, the most recent that I've really enjoyed is his recap of. For anyone who's watching, the Pit of the first season of the Pit is excellent. And if you're not watching the Pit, I don't know what you're doing. You should be watching the Pit.

[Alison Stewart]

That's all.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Necessity's the mother of invention. The man of recaps.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

It's a new show.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Gary in White Plains. Hi, Gary.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Thanks for calling all of it.

[Gary (Caller)]

Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for taking the call. I'd like to mention two shows that can't wait for them to come out. Actually, one just came out with another season. The other one is pending. But so much has changed in the world around us. That's Fowda and Tehran. So both of them came out before October 7th. So we'll see what happens with the new season when those come out.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Gary, thanks for calling in. Brad from Brooklyn is calling in. Hi, Brad, thanks for calling all of us.

[Alison Stewart]

All of us.

[Brad (Caller)]

Hey, thanks for taking my call. I love the show. So I was watching the last of us, the first season or I can't remember if we're on season three now or whatever. And of course they never tell you how long it's gonna be for the next one. And I swear we waited two years or something and then this season was just like, it just. I was watching and I was like, oh, I hope it picks up. And then just like it was over. It was like they ran out of money or something like that. Or like, you know, and I understand the show is like based on a video game, so they have, you know, they do have a plot that they are following, but it's just like, can we take some of this budget and like, hire some good writers? It's just so frustrating.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Thank you for calling in. Yeah, Rob, what has this done to the content of shows he was just talking about the Last of Us just seemed like it started and ended.

[Rob Arthur]

Yeah, Last of Us is near and dear to my heart as a fan of both the video game and the show. But yeah, that's a great example as well. It was about a two year gap, I believe, between the end of season one and the beginning of season two. But in that case, to go to that point, they actually, it looks like to me, like they split the second and third season are essentially corresponding to the plots of the second game. So they're trying to maybe prolong the extent to which they can rely on the video game to give them plot points. And that might be part of the reason that he had that feeling of it being over sort of before it began. It was in fact part of a story and not the full story. And that's something I've noticed as well.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And it can make it difficult to capture or increase your audience because when.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

There'S this long gap between seasons. The Last of Us, Season two is a good example. House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel, the Rings of Power, a.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Lot of these shows and some big hits in season one didn't really retain their entire audiences in season two. And, you know, that could just be because of the quality of the show, but it's also because people are out.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Of the rhythm of watching that show. It seems like an ancient memory. They don't remember very much about what happened before. And so shows say, you know, next time on. And then next time is three years from now or previously on.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

And that's why the YouTube recapper who was mentioned, that's something at the ringer.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We always have to reckon with.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

You know, do we need a primer?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Do we need to refresh people's memories.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

When a new season is Coming back, Do you have time to binge the entire show before the new season? Do you just read synopses?

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, the two to three minute.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Previously on Recap that will be before the first episode of a new series or season. That's not sufficient to catch you up if it's actually been years.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And it may also affect the structure of the season. You know, there are a lot of people who think that a cliffhanger doesn't.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Work as well as it once did.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because if you had a cliffhanger and.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Then a show maybe went away for three months and then it was back.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay, you could kind of be on.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

The edge of your seat that entire time.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If it goes away for three years, you don't even remember who was hanging on the cliff. Or the character could have fallen off by then. You don't care anymore because you don't even remember who that character was.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So it does maybe change some storytelling considerations for the creators.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Yeah, I wanted to go back to a point that Amanda brought up about the show, the Pit. It's gone back to like sort of the weekly series where it drops every. I guess Thursday night is when it drops. I can't remember when night it drops. It just started again. It sort of falls between the sort of precious six episodes for one season versus the way network TVs were like 22, 23 episodes long. Do you think it's they have found the right way about releasing the series, that sort of. That middle ground? What do you think, Ben?

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

I hope so, because I do miss when a show that was great, you know, 30 years ago, it would just be on most of the year because there might be 26 episodes or more and it would air and then it would go away for a few months and it would be back.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so it was kind of a constant companion. The downside was that everything was rushed.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

You know, it was hell, essentially for the people who were trying to just lay that track in front of the train and not great for their work life balance.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Also not great just for the quality of the story.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

And, you know, you had a lot.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Of filler and clip shows and all of those ways to sort of get something on the screen.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Now you can take more time and.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It can be more considered, but it's just such a short allotment of episodes.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

It just. It doesn't quite feel like enough to me. So I hope that there is a middle ground where we can spend more time with these stories and these characters and they could be gone night. Not quite as long between seasons and.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It would be manageable.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

So you'd still be able to have a quality story, not come an actor to that one role for that entire year, essentially. But it wouldn't just come back and then feel like it was disappearing for years immediately after that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So I think that's what they're aiming.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

For, as I said, the sort of prestige ural, you know, take the, the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Old school model of a procedural that.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

You can kind of churn out and, you know, have a slightly higher level of quality and manage to keep it coming on a fairly dependable schedule.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

ROB Network TV often worked on ad.

[Alison Stewart]

Driven models, but with streaming, I'm wondering how subscriber growth and retention will be.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Influenced by having to wait so long for big series.

[Rob Arthur]

Yeah, and that's a, that's a big missing piece in trying to look at this kind of thing is we don't know the subscriber counts. We don't know why people subscribe if they subscribe to watch Stranger Things or something else. So we weren't able to really look at that in the same way as you can or you could in the old days with TV ratings where that data was more accessible. But I think perhaps some of this movement back towards longer seasons, shorter gaps between seasons, I think you can kind of see that perhaps TV streamers are reacting to these longer breaks, maybe finding that it does lead to loss of interest over time. But that's speculation on my part because we just don't have the data to be able to, to say confidently one way or the other.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I think as, as Rob alluded.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

To earlier, the churn rate, sort of.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The turnover in subscribers from month to month, that is definitely a metric that a lot of the streamers look at.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

And Netflix is sort of the outlier there where it has a low churn rate, whether because people are just so used to Netflix being a staple of their media diet, or because there's just so much on there that's been built up.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But a lot of other streamers and some of the more recent additions, there.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Definitely is a trend toward people just signing up to watch one show and then that show goes away and they cancel. And so the streamers are really trying to look for ways to, to prevent.

[Ben Lindbergh]

People from canceling between seasons. And that could be investing in live.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Sports, you know, that could be investing in, in sitcoms and procedurals, or it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Could be trying to ramp up the.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Production process so that things actually come back a bit more regularly. And you're not saying, well, that's it for this streaming service because I don't need to pay for this for three more years till my favorite show returns.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

The weight between seasons of our favorite shows has grown much longer. The Ringer senior editor Ben Lindbergh and journalist and data scientist Rob Arthur join me to explain why and how it's changed our viewing habits. We're asking you listeners, what show have you been willing to wait for? What shows did you lose interest? Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. How have you seen wait? Times change the way shows are developed. 212-433-969-2212, WNYC this This is a good comment. This text says the solution is to do what I do, come to the show late. Like many seasons in I discovered both Succession and the Crown when their third and fourth season, respectively were launching. I was so exhausted by binging three and four seasons that I didn't mind the wait.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's a great life hack.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

I've done it.

[Rob Arthur]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I've, I've felt envy for people.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Who'Ve discovered a series I love late, whereas I've had these agonizing, excruciating waits for new episodes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And for them, they could just binge the whole thing because it's there immediately.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

This text says, I used to laugh about franchise movies, for example, the James Bond series or Austin Powers or why not just make a TV show of it the way you would make them continually? That's essentially what TV series are. Is that true or has it just changed?

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

I think that's happened more and more. Yeah, we've seen much more franchise fodder, obviously. You know, Star wars and Game of Thrones and Marvel, et cetera, expanding to TV with varied success, I guess. But yeah, everything is about franchise building and about kind of capitalizing on established.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Properties, sequels, prequels, reboots, et cetera. Anything with name recognition or a built.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

In audience that can just kind of break through the static of how much is going on at any one time.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so that probably does lead to longer delays because, you know, you have to wait for the big blockbuster movie to come out before you can then roll out the series featuring some character from that movie or stagger the releases.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

So you're not flooding the market with too much stuff at the same time. So there are all these considerations now. You know, it's about sort of the the cinematic and TV universe as opposed to several just discrete standalone products.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Luke in Larchmont. Hi, Luke. Thanks for calling all of us.

[Luke (Caller)]

Hey, how's it going?

[Alison Stewart]

Going okay?

[Gary (Caller)]

Yeah.

[Luke (Caller)]

So I. Yeah, I. I just want to answer the question about what show I'm willing to wait for. And just this whole thing about waiting longer and longer for shows, I find that especially, I think, as animated television more and more is becoming more like prestige TV and more respected. Like, it's in kind of getting higher production values.

[Brad (Caller)]

I feel like it takes.

[Luke (Caller)]

So there's so much time now in between so many animated shows.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like.

[Luke (Caller)]

Like one great show on Netflix called the Blue Eye that I really love. And it's taking just like, it's.

[Gary (Caller)]

It's.

[Luke (Caller)]

They say season two is gonna be coming out years after season one, and it's just like. But I'm willing to wait for it because it's so good with my point. And basically I'm just calling to say everyone should go watch Blue Eye Samurai because it's really good. But, yeah, just with animation, especially, like. Like, so much goes into it with the drawing and the storyboarding and the voice acting, and especially with animation, I feel like it's just so much time in between seasons.

[Alison Stewart]

So Luke is willing to wait should be the topic of that call for both of you. Ben, what show were you willing to wait for?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, I almost feel like I don't mind waiting for anything now just because.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

There'S so much that. That I never really feel the absence.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Of any particular thing. You know, Blue Eye Samurai is a good example. That's a great show. But I'm not really counting down the.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Days because there's always something coming out, right? There's always more than I can actually watch.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We see the same thing in video.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Games, by the way. You know, longer production timelines, just bigger budgets, games taking several years to come out instead of a year or two.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And because there are just more games than have ever been made and released, I am always just swamped with stuff, you know, so I'm right there in the boat. I watch a ton of tv, and.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Yes, I am looking forward to a lot of it, but I find that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If you look forward to enough things, then it actually kind of works out.

[Unnamed Co-host or Contributor]

Because you don't feel the absence of any one thing. There's always something else coming down the pike.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Rob, 30 seconds left.

[Alison Stewart]

Anything you're waiting for?

[Rob Arthur]

Nothing in particular. Like Ben, I just try to kind of feast and pick my spots. And I also adopt that strategy of waiting till a show is almost over and knowing whether it's really going to pay off before I dive in. So that's the way that I deal with it.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

Ben and Rob, thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, thanks for having us.

[Rob Arthur]

Thank you.

[Caller or Host Facilitator]

And that is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening, and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here next time.

[Ira Plato]

I'm Ira Plato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their lives. Cancer, climate change, genetic engineering, childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.