Netflix has cancelled numerous series in recent weeks, and a look at the current Netflix charts immediately suggests the next potential candidate: “Lockwood & Co.” However, there is still hope…
“Looks good, but will be cancelled by Netflix after season 1 anyway”: That or something like that were many comments under the trailer for “Lockwood & Co.”, which Netflix released in January 2023. And indeed, it did seem somewhat alarming that the streaming service began marketing the fantasy series with just two weeks’ notice. Now that “Lockwood & Co.” has been released, the fans’ worries seem to be confirmed – at least with a view to the weekly Netflix charts.
“Lockwood & Co.” was namely watched for around 25.1 million hours on Netflix in the period from 23 to 29 January 2023. That may sound a lot, but it is less than half the watch time of “Ginny & Georgia” season 2 – which, mind you, is already in its fourth week (!). After its start on 5 January, Season 2 was watched a whopping 180 million hours within four days.
But other series were also significantly more successful than “Lockwood & Co.” in the first week after release, such as “The Wild Nineties” (41 million hours) or “Vikings: Valhalla” Season 2 (55 million hours) or “The Recruit” (52 million hours). All this unfortunately already strongly suggests that “Lockwood & Co.” will then be cancelled in a few weeks.
HOW MANY REAL FANS DO “LOCKWOOD & CO.”
However, there is still hope: Should the series gain a decent amount of watchtime in the current second week and remain in the Netflix top 10 over the coming weeks, that would certainly be a good sign. Especially as this would then also speak for a strong performance in an important statistic for Netflix.
Apparently, the number of hours watched is not the only decisive factor for Netflix in deciding whether to cancel or renew a series. Rather, the streaming service is also concerned with the so-called completetion rate, i.e. the percentage of Netflix accounts that have finished watching a series they have started.
This is a much better indicator of whether a Netflix series has dedicated fans and whether they are interested in a further season. If a large number of Netflix households simply watch the first two or three episodes and then drop out, this means that a large number of hours have been watched without there being an audience for a new season.
The completion rate, however, is not evident from the figures in the weekly charts. So for fans of “Lockwood & Co.” it’s just a case of wait and see…
