Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has pushed back against reports of a "season two problem" on the streamer, arguing that while second-season viewership dips are real, they are not as severe as recently suggested and remain within expected ranges. The comments, made during Netflix's quarterly earnings update, follow a Bloomberg report highlighting steep viewing declines for second seasons of shows including Beef, The Four Seasons and One Piece, using Netflix's own weekly top 10 data.

Sarandos said second-season declines are common across the industry and are amplified at Netflix because its shows tend to launch unusually large due to global reach and all-at-once release strategy, unlike shows elsewhere that often start small and build an audience over time. He also claimed the company's season-two drop-off has slightly improved compared with last year. Separately, Netflix touted early success with video podcasts, from creators including The Ringer, Jay Shetty and Pete Davidson, but declined to release specific viewing figures, instead lumping them into an "other shows" category that generated 757 million viewing hours from January to June, just over one percent of the platform's 74.4 billion total viewing hours in that period.