The Great but Canceled ‘Great News’ Needs to Find New Life on Netflix

Great news, Netflix viewers: Great News Season 1 is now streaming! This lightning-fast super smart ‘n’ silly newsroom comedy won all of us here at Decider over in a big way when it debuted on NBC in 2017. It was at the forefront of the network’s recent comedy resurgence and was infinitely bingeable. For viewers really missing the rapid-fire jokes of 30 Rock, this comedy (from 30 Rock alum Tracey Wigfield and produced by Tina Fey!) more than lived up to expectations. Now a whole new set of viewers can rediscover this show!

And… that’s where the great news ends, because Great News was canceled by NBC back in May a few months after wrapping up a stellar second season. Two seasons, 23 episodes, and that’s it. The show’s arrival on Netflix feels like too little (why is only Season 1 hitting Netflix now?) too late (the show’s already axed). This is where I scream at the TV heavens, “Why in the world did it take Netflix so long to get Great News?!” This is why I’m mad: the Netflix bump is real, and Great News really could have used it.

To explain, the Netflix bump is what happens when a network show gets a whole season dropped on Netflix in one go, suddenly attracting a whole new audience looking for things labeled “NEW EPISODES” to watch. There are a whole lotta cord cutters out there who get all their entertainment from Netflix, and a new-to-them show is just as appealing as a Netflix original. Then when the show comes back for a new season on its original network, a chunk of those Netflix converts tune in and watch week-to-week, thus bumping up the ratings.

To prove the point, you can just look at The CW president Mark Pedowitz’s comment saying that yeah, his shows see a real Netflix bump. Shows like Riverdale and all the DC superhero series hit Netflix usually a week after the season wraps on the CW. That explains Riverdale’s massive ratings resurgence between Seasons 1 and 2. The show debuted strong-ish for the CW (1.38 million viewers) but fell off a bunch by the Season 1 finale (0.96 million). But after a summer on Netflix introduced to a bunch of new eyes, the show came back stronger than ever for its Season 2 premiere (2.34 million viewers!).

This also happened with another NBC sitcom, The Good Place. The show spiked from 3.93 million viewers for the Season 1 finale to 5.28 million for the Season 2 premiere. Just look at the Google Trends search traffic surrounding The Good Place:

The show spiked when it premiered on September 19, 2016. There was a smaller spike when the Season 1 finale aired on January 19, 2017. And then you’ll see another spike at the end of the summer, one that matches the search spike from January. Why did that happen? Because The Good Place was added to Netflix on August 21! And when the show came back for Season 2 just a month later, the show hadn’t cooled off much at all. Season 2’s search traffic hit the same height as the series premiere (impressive!) and the show maintained a higher level of search interest for all of Season 2 compared to Season 1.

Why didn’t the same thing happen for Great News?! The Good Place Season 1 hit Netflix seven months after it wrapped on Netflix, just in time for the Season 2 premiere. Perfect! Great News Season 1 hit Netflix today, and Season 1 ended 15 months ago! It’s been so long that Great News produced a complete second season and got canceled! They coulda used that Netflix exposure a year ago right before Season 2 debuted! Why were they denied a bump?!

I know it feels like networks and streaming services are two separate things, usually at odds with each other. Viewers have to figure out how to navigate all the rules and restrictions, like how some current network shows keep a library of episodes on Hulu while others only keep the most recent five. And with Netflix, there’s all the speculation about when new seasons will be added to the platform (lookin’ at you, Criminal Minds Season 13!), speculation that usually amounts to a shrug emoji. Now I have to wonder why The Good Place (a 3 Arts Entertainment/Universal Television production) got primo Netflix time while Great News (another 3 Arts Entertainment/Universal Television production) didn’t.

The big bummer is that the Netflix bump is a way for networks and streaming services to coexist, to really benefit all kinds of viewers. It seems like a win-win. Streaming services get current shows that their users can discover, and then some of those users can become viewers when the show comes back on its home network. Increased ratings on the network leads to increased buzz, which pulls even more people to the streaming service when a new season drops there. Proof of that: even though it hasn’t even premiered yet, we already have a “when is Season 3 of Riverdale coming to Netflix” post because there were that many Netflix users searching for that info on Google back in June!

But since Great News is off the air, NBC will never get to see if it could be the recipient of a Netflix bump. That’s a major bummer, because it was too great of a show to disappear so soon. But I’ll end on some potentially great news, though: Netflix will be able to see how many people are streaming this show, and Netflix has saved shows in the past. I want you to binge all of Great News Season 1 right now, and binge all of Season 2 when they add it (fingers crossed it’s soon) and who knows, maybe when you Google “when is Season 3 of Great News coming to Netflix” there’ll be a good answer.

Where to stream Great news