Netflix CEO Makes Controversial Statement on Popular Shows That Were Canceled

Netflix has never canceled a show it deems successful. That much is straight from the mouth of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, whose time as the streamer's content chief put him in a prime position to replace the now-retired Reed Hastings. In a new sit-down with Bloomberg, Sarandos says the streamer has yet to cancel a show that's provided the streamer the right numbers to continue, despite the platform canceling many of the new shows it orders after just a few years.

"We have never canceled a successful show. A lot of these shows were well-intended but talk to a very small audience on a very big budget," Sarandos told the magazine. "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."

Among a consistent stream of cancellations, Netflix will soon also begin cracking down on password sharing, meaning subscribers who share accounts between households will soon have to have one account per location. "This will not be a universally popular move," Sarandos' colleague Greg Peters explained, indicating that "[There will be] a bit of cancel reaction to that."

The password-sharing crackdown comes at the same time Netflix starts to lay the groundwork for a free ad-supported tier aiming to get the company a new revenue stream outside of subscriptions.

"We've landed on a thoughtful approach to monetize account sharing and we'll begin rolling this out more broadly starting in early 2023," the company previously said in a quarterly statement. "After listening to consumer feedback, we are going to offer the ability for borrowers to transfer their Netflix profile into their own account, and for sharers to manage their devices more easily and to create sub-accounts ('extra member'), if they want to pay for family or friends. In countries with our lower-priced ad-supported plan, we expect the profile transfer option for borrowers to be especially popular."

Have any of your favorite shows been canceled by Netflix? What are your thoughts on the password-sharing crackdown? Let us know what you're thinking in the comments section!