Already a member? Log In

Netflix’s ‘Seinfeld’ Strategy

girls5eva
Girls5Eva is no longer on Peacock—but has been resuscitated for a third season at Netflix. Photo by: Heidi Gutman/Peacock
Julia Alexander
November 1, 2022

Sometime last summer, without any reporting at the time, Girls5Eva, the well-reviewed but semi-obscure comedy series from Tina Fey, was quietly canceled by NBCU’s Peacock. Despite a Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score of 98 percent, the show never quite broke into the wider zeitgeist. But luckily for the cast, and for its smitten critics, the show has been resuscitated for a third season at Netflix. 

There is, of course, a sophisticated audience retention strategy behind this particular bit of I.P. shuffling. Because while not many people watched Girls5Eva on Peacock, the show could potentially find a much wider-reaching audience on Netflix. And that’s precisely the dynamic that makes Netflix such a powerful force among all the streaming companies, despite its recent and precipitous stock decline (and cautiously optimistic resurgence). Netflix, after all, remains virtually unmatched in its ability to resuscitate a show: to take a title that was otherwise left for dead, prop it up in front of its 223 million paid subscribers, and turn it into a bonafide global hit.