As the saying goes, it’s never too late to change. If you have followed streaming platform news across this year, you know that while we enjoy brand-new content from every major streamer on a weekly basis, CEOs, COOs, and all the big Cs repeatedly go back to the drawing board to figure out ways to keep subscribers watching their content day in, day out. The streamer that has had to swallow bitter pill after bitter pill on this matter is Netflix. Once the absolute biggest TV and film streaming platform, the tu-dum company has had to reinvent itself many times in order to stop its mass exodus of subscribers.

The latest decision heard through the grapevine (AKA Puck Newsletter) is that Netflix is considering adapting some of its biggest titles to the one-episode-a-week format, a classic pattern that was established with network television. Back when Netflix started growing, they decided that every new season of a series would have all episodes made available at once, and viewers decided the rhythm that they were going to watch it.

The trouble is, this format worked pretty well when Netflix had barely any competition. Now, however, Reed Hastings (the company’s CEO) and his team are realizing that the model harms their own content. The competition has reaped benefits from extending the release window from their series, and the main reason for this is simple: Having a show go on for several weeks keeps viewers engaged to it for a longer stretch of time, which potentially attracts more viewers and/or subscribers. When a huge Netflix hit like Stranger Things debuts, people talk constantly about it for one or two weeks tops, and then it’s on to the next adventure.

A collage of Stranger Things season 4 characters

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Netflix has already given clear signs of needing to adapt its strategy in order to stay afloat: On top of announcing a cheaper, ad-supported tier to bring subscribers back – the streamer reportedly lost almost a million subscribers last quarter alone –, the streamer has spaced out the release of new seasons of some of its shows. Reality series like The Circle and Love is Blind are now being released in batches of episodes spread across a month, and highly expected titles like Stranger Things, Ozark and Spanish-language hit Money Heist had their latest seasons divided in two parts, all in order to keep people talking about them for a while longer.

On the viewers’ end, the week-to-week release strategy is a good one, since it doesn’t force everyone to binge their favorite show just because they want to avoid spoilers online. At the same time, the spaced-out season is a great way to popularize a show, since people will talk about, reflect upon and form theories on it as a season develops. Netflix’s biggest competition, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, have had no problem in using this model, and the result is that viewers keep returning to their platforms every week to check out the new episode of shows like She-Hulk: Attorney at Law or Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Netflix undoubtedly changed the way we watch television forever, but now their time has come to do something about subscribers losing interest and adapt to a change they themselves set in motion.