Why Your Hot Take About Amazon's Cancellation Of 'Good Girls Revolt' Was Probably Wrong

When Amazon cancelled its original TV series "Good Girls Revolt" after one season, there were a lot of hot-takes written about the decision. Some of the angst was driven by the creative part of the decision: the show is good, why didn't it get picked up? Some of the hand-wringing focused on the financials: it's not an expensive show compared to other Amazon originals, so why did it get canceled? And some of the complaints were centered on the fact that the relationship between then Amazon Studios head Roy Price and female writer/producers can charitably be described as "troubled." So is that why Amazon dropped "Good Girls Revolt" after one season?

While Amazon Studio executives have declined to discuss the decision at length, the over-riding metric for the decision might be found in a document recently released by Reuters. This slide in particular  shows the cost of some of Amazon's higher-profile original productions, along with a figure described as "cost per first stream." The latter number is important and while it's not the only financial metric used by Amazon to make programming decisions, it might be the most important one.

Simply put, "cost per first stream" is arrived at by looking at the behavior of new Amazon Prime members. Amazon tracks the first show they stream on Prime and credit that new membership to the show. They then look at the total production cost of the show, divide it by the new members that watched it as their first stream and arrive at a membership acquisition cost. That is the "cost per first stream."

The interesting thing about this metric is that it's at least a rudimentary way to figure out what a show is really worth to Amazon. And based on the small sampling of shows in the chart, the "cost per first stream" can vary wildly. For instance, let's look at an original series that costs roughly the same amount as "Good Girls Revolt." Season one of "The Grand Tour" cost $78 million. But because it brought in a lot of new Amazon Prime subscribers, the cost per first stream was only $49. That's about half the cost of an annual Amazon Prime subscription, so picking up season two of the show in advance was a great decision. 

On the other hand, while "Good Girls Revolt" cost $81 million for its season, that show's cost per first stream was $1,560. "Good Girls Revolt" brought in substantially fewer new customers than many other original Amazon originals, which made the decision to cancel it much more likely. That doesn't mean that Amazon didn't weigh other factors and it doesn't mean that Roy Price wasn't a misogynist jerk who didn't understand the show. But it does mean that from a strictly financial standpoint, cancelling "Good Girls Revolt" was a good business decision.

This metric is also an important one for Netflix and it's an important one to keep in mind when writing stories about the streaming sector. Pure viewer numbers matter less than who is watching and why. A small show that brings in a lot of new subscribers can be much more important than a larger familiar franchise that doesn't move the new subscriber numbers.