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Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged that second seasons of the streamer’s shows tend to draw less well than debut seasons. But, he said, it’s not as bad as a recently prevalent narrative would make it seem.

The streamer also touted some early results from the addition of video podcasts to the platform in its quarterly earnings report — but declined to divulge any specific numbers in a large-scale data release for the first half of the year.

The season two problem narrative was sparked by a recent Bloomberg story detailing steep viewing declines for several shows in their second seasons, among them Beef, The Four Seasons and One Piece. Sarandos didn’t dispute those findings — which came from Netflix’s own publicly released weekly top 10 lists — but said that “in aggregate, we’re not seeing any material change in our second season viewing compared to season ones. Our second seasons are performing well within our bands of expectation.”

Sarandos also said that viewing declines for the second season of a show are “very common” across the industry and offered this rationale for why it happens at Netflix: “It’s even moreso with us, because we launch our shows so big,” he said. “Our global reach, our discovery mechanism, releasing all at once — this enables us to find a very large audience early. Our shows tend to start really big, where most other places, their shows start pretty small and occasionally grow from there.”

Sarandos added, “When we look across the entire portfolio … our season two fall-off has actually slightly improved this year relative to last year.”

As for video podcasts, Netflix made a push into that area this year, adding shows from The Ringer, Jay Shetty, Pete Davidson, Brian Williams and New York’s Breakfast Club radio show, among others. Sarandos noted that the shows overindex with mobile users relative to long-form series and have driven up engagement a bit during daytime hours.

So how are they doing, specifically? Well …

A note at the end of Netflix’s data release said that all video podcasts (there are several dozen) are lumped into an “other shows” grouping that also includes any series that received fewer than 50,000 views (calculated as viewing hours divided by run time) in the first half of the year. That doesn’t necessarily mean that every podcast fell below that threshold, the company says. But since it’s a relatively new type of programming for the platform, Netflix opted not to break out the stats for any single show.

The “other shows” category accounted for 757 million viewing hours from January to June — which sounds like a lot but is only about one percent of the 74.4 billion hours Netflix users spent watching all series in those six months.

The Walt Disney Co. is protective of its iconic characters and intellectual property. The National Football League is too. The league wants its teams showcased in the best light, and Disney wants its characters to shine.

On Thursday afternoon, in New York’s Jacob Javits Center, the world of Disney collided with the world of the NFL, all in service of an unusual new consumer product line, one that mixes some of Disney’s characters with all 32 NFL teams.

That’s how Darth Vader, flanked by a pair of Storm Troopers, found himself on stage at Fanatics Fest alongside NFL legend and Las Vegas Raiders owner Tom Brady, Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, with Marvel chairman Kevin Feige looking on from the audience.

Vader was the first pick in the “Disney Fan Draft,” held on the floor of the convention, which served as a launchpad for the “Disney | Champion NFL Collection,” which pairs Disney characters with an NFL team.

The apparel line launched at the Fest with eight teams (and characters), with all 32 launching in August.

In addition to Vader and the Raiders, the collection includes the Buffalo Bills and Beast from Beauty and the Beast; the Dallas Cowboys and Toy Story’s Woody; the New England Patriots and Marvel’s Captain America; the New York Giants and Wreck-It Ralph; the New York Jets and Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Captain Hook; and the Washington Commanders and Toy Story’s Hamm.

“The Disney | Champion NFL Collection reflects our continued commitment to creating consumer products and experiences that sit at the intersection of culture, fandom, and storytelling,” Paul Gitter, executive VP global brand commercialization for Disney Consumer Products, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “As we build toward ESPN’s ‘Year of the Super Bowl,’ we’re expanding how fans engage with Disney across sports through moments that drive relevance, connection and long-term brand affinity.”

According to Bret Healey, director of graphic design at Disney Consumer Products, the Disney products team really did draft the characters for each team. While what happened on stage at Fanatics Fest was in service of the show, the Disney team put a lot of thought into each pairing.

“We did the draft based on the team first: What’s the team’s personality? What are their colors? What’s their team name? What are their fans like? What’s their city like? What are their ‘like ‘if you know you know’ moments? So I took that all into consideration with my team, and we essentially drafted all 32 of the teams together,” Healey says.

And while many of the characters are Disney “all-stars,” so to speak, he says that they were deliberate in their choices.

“Whichever character worked best for that team, that’s the story we were going to tell, even if they are a tertiary character,” he says.

Consumer products are one of the core parts of Disney’s corporate flywheel. The business generated revenue of $974 million in the company’s latest quarterly report, with operating income of $479 million, enormous margins that reflect Disney’s heavy focus on licensing through partners like Champion.

With its latest effort, the company is banking that it can bring some NFL fans along for the ride too.

After more than 10 years of streaming content to the country, Netflix has kicked off production on its first original series ever commissioned in New Zealand. On Friday, the company unveiled Queenstown, an eight-episode drama set amid the luxury ski scene of the titular South Island resort town.

Unfolding amid the moneyed gloss of the town’s ski-resort elite, the series follows a privileged family and the people who work for them as their lives collide over power, loyalty and desire — or, as Netflix put it, “a wealthy family at war with itself.” Production is underway on location in Queenstown itself.

Queenstown was created and written by Chloe Stearns (Wolf Like Me, The Falling Girls, Evergreen), who executive produces. Glendyn Ivin (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Penguin Bloom) serves as lead director and executive producer, with New Zealand filmmaker Roseanne Liang (Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender) also directing.

Emmy nominee Rufus Sewell (The Diplomat, Scoop, The Father) leads the ensemble alongside Frances O’Connor (Wednesday, The Missing), Australian actress Alycia Debnam-Carey (Apple Cider Vinegar, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova) and New Zealand actor Te Kohe Tuhaka (Chief of War, The Convert, Kōkā).

“Shooting our first locally-commissioned series here in New Zealand is a huge moment for us,” said Amanda Duthie, Netflix’s content director for Australia and New Zealand. “This is a bold, propulsive story of power, class and family set against the opulent world of a luxury ski town, and we can’t wait for our members to fall in love with this series the way we have.”

Jodi Matterson (The Dry, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart) — who launched her Silent Firework banner in 2024 after exiting Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories — executive produces alongside Libbie Doherty (Bluey, Crazy Fun Park) of Runaway Unicorn, with Jeremy Platt and Erika North rounding out the exec producer team.

Matterson and Doherty, in a joint statement, hailed Stearns as “an extraordinary new voice” — and predicted the series will become “audiences’ next obsession.”

The commission marks a notable step for Netflix’s originals strategy Down Under, which has so far centered on Australia with hits including Heartbreak High, Boy Swallows Universe and Apple Cider Vinegar. New Zealand, by contrast, has long served the streamer primarily as a spectacular production location — Sweet Tooth and Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning The Power of the Dog both shot there — without ever hosting a homegrown series of its own. The Queenstown production is backed by the New Zealand Film Commission and the country’s Screen Production Rebate. A premiere date has yet to be announced.