Which Streaming Service Cancels the Most Shows? New Study Reveals Which Streamer Has the Highest Cancellation Rate

A new study has revealed which streaming service cancels TV series at the highest rate.

Variety Intelligence Platform (VIP+) and Luminate have collaborated on a new data exploration designed to determine how frequently the leading U.S.-based streaming and linear programmers have cancelled TV shows over the past three years.

The new report, titled “The Show Must Go Off”, was released on Thursday morning (September 14) and offers new insight into the rate at which major streamers cancel series.

Keep reading to find out more…

Variety writes that Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Max, Apple TV+, Peacock and Paramount+ had a combined cancellation rate of 12.2% between 2020 and Aug. 8, 2023. This is not much higher than linear TV (10.8%) but is less than half of broadcast TV alone over that period.

Max was the most cut-throat when it came to canceling shows with a 26.9% cancellation rate, which makes sense since the streamer has axed a significant amount of content since the Warner Bros.-Discovery merger in 2022.

Netflix, which is often used as an example of a streamer that “cancels everything,” came in fifth with a 10.2% cancellation rate. However, the outlet notes that part of what makes Netflix a target for cancellation criticism is the sheer volume of shows they produce, which also had a sizable impact on the data revealed in the study. Netflix is also one of the few streamers that improved its cancellation rate over time.

AppleTV+ had the lowest cancellation rate at 4.9%, which in part reflects the streamer’s absence of catalog programming.

Notably, there’s not a huge difference in the number of series killed across linear versus across streaming. There were 221 cancellations across major streamers from 2020-2023, with linear television coming in at 193 cancelled shows. In addition, Variety found that most platforms tend to cancel shows that are still in their first season versus those that have been on the air longer.

See the full report at Variety here.

Check out which Max shows have been cancelled so far this year.