I am sure that most of you are aware of the fact that it’s a challenging time to be an independent journalist. There is paid subscription fatigue and competition for eyeballs from both other small-ish newsletters, digital upstarts such as Puck as well as the legacy Hollywood trades.

That being said, I feel that TooMuchTV is definitely punching above its weight. I received a DM today from one of the lead attorneys who had attempted to stop the Paramount merger and this is something that any independent journalist is pleased to read:

And this mention was in today’s edition of Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources newsletter:

So my reporting is having an impact and I’m reporting out stories no one else is covering. The challenge for me is that my percentage of paid subscriptions vs the 190,000 or so free ones is uncomfortably out of balance. I don’t push the paid subscription option a lot here and every Too Much TV newsletter is free, with no paywall. Which ironically makes it more difficult to persuade readers to pay for it.

So if you’ve been enjoying TooMuchTV, consider going one step further and becoming a paid subscriber.

For $40 a year—that’s about the cost of two months of The Ankler—you get more of the work that makes TooMuchTV different: thoughtful, independent writing that takes the time to look beyond the obvious, connect the dots, and tell you something you’re unlikely to get from a quick scroll through the news.

There’s plenty of free content on the internet. What’s harder to find is writing with a distinct point of view, a willingness to dig deeper, and enough personality to make you want to keep reading. That’s what I’m trying to build here.

Your subscription helps keep that work going. It supports the time it takes to research, write, question, and occasionally chase an idea down a very unexpected rabbit hole.

And at $40 for the year, it’s a relatively small way to support something you actually read and value. And if work at an organization and are interested in a discounted group rate, contact me.

If TooMuchTV has made you think, laugh, reconsider something, or simply given you a better way to spend a few minutes, I’d love to have you as a paid subscriber.

I will be kicking off a membership drive this weekend and I’ll be reminding you of the paid subscriber-only content that you’re missing.

Thanks to all of you for reading the newsletter every day. I really appreciate it.

In the last newsletter, I wrote about the dangers of relying on things such as Nielsen’s The Gauge as the final word on platform-level viewing share. I also argued that YouTube and Netflix are very different businesses. Treating them as an apples-to-apples comparison misunderstands the role of both platforms.

Today, I want to write about engagement — a complex issue that is entirely too nuanced to cram into one newsletter. So first, let’s start by defining the question.

How do you define engagement, and what does it mean when the rate of engagement slows down?

In streaming television, the best broad definition of engagement is that it refers to the amount of time and frequency with which viewers interact with or consume a streaming program or service, beyond simply counting how many people watched.

It’s important to realize that there is no single industry-standard definition of “engagement” across streaming platforms. Netflix, YouTube, Nielsen, Disney+, Amazon and other services can use different methodologies and metrics.

There are a variety of data points that can be considered measures of engagement, depending on the platform and the strategic outcome you are measuring.

For example, these data points can all be considered some measure of “engagement”:

For most purposes, I’d generally define engagement as the amount and frequency of time audiences spend consuming a service or platform. That is more precise than simply calling engagement “viewership.” Viewership answers how many people watched; engagement describes how deeply or frequently they watched.

Netflix is seen in the industry as having an engagement problem, and that’s one that even Ted Sarandos acknowledges.

At Bloomberg’s 2026 Screentime event on Wednesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged that the company’s engagement growth had slowed to just over 2% in the first half of 2026.

Now, we don’t know exactly how Netflix measures that engagement. But if you assume that, generally speaking, it’s a measure of how much time subscribers spend on the service each month, then if Netflix wants to improve its engagement numbers, it has five pillars of engagement that it can work to improve:

Let’s focus right now on original content. Specifically, the challenges Netflix has faced over the past year with shows that are returning after a successful first season.

If subscribers enjoyed the first season of a show, then reminding them to tune in when the new season drops is the epitome of low-hanging fruit. And yet, this is something that Netflix continues to struggle with.

Part of the problem is due to how the company views marketing and publicity in general.

Publicity is one of the first things to be cut in tough financial times, and like the floor salespeople of the retail world, it makes sense at first glance. You can cut a certain number of publicists at a streamer and still deliver somewhat useful publicity efforts. But it’s a fine line, and once you’ve crossed it, you’re saving money in the short term but hurting yourself with subscriber growth and retention.

Every streaming service has its own specific publicity challenges, but if you talk to journalists who cover the streaming industry on a regular basis, unhappiness with Netflix dwarfs the complaints about any other service. And there’s no way to adequately describe the problem without getting into whatever the streaming industry’s equivalent of inside baseball might be.

Netflix executives have a deeply held belief that the best driver of content discovery is the algorithm of the platform’s UI. Netflix often seems to have more faith in its internal ability to push programs than in most forms of external promotion. And we have no metrics from the outside that would support or disprove that theory.

What is true is that an increasing number of producers and outside studios feel as if they have to hire outside promotional help when their shows launch. Probably 75% of the Netflix shows I’ve covered in the past few months have hired outside PR help. And I frequently hear from those publicists that their efforts to work with Netflix publicists on their shows are beyond frustrating.

That issue is magnified with additional seasons of shows, especially ones that have a solid base of viewers but aren’t a show like Wednesday. A new season premieres with a review embargo tied to the premiere date. Much of the algorithmic attention is focused on new shows, and by the time fans stumble across the new season while looking for something else, Netflix has decided to cancel it due to poor engagement.

There are things Netflix could do to increase engagement with these follow-up seasons, and none of the changes require a huge expenditure of resources.

Loosen the embargo dates and give critics the chance to remind viewers the show is coming. If a subscriber has saved a show and then completed the initial season, drop the new season into the user’s “Continue Watching” queue and send them an email on the premiere date reminding them that the new season is available.

If a show has been gone for more than a year, automatically create a short, five-minute-or-so recap video highlighting the previous season. Drop that into the reminder email as well as into the user’s Continue Watching queue a couple of days before the new season debuts.

I have a number of other suggestions along these lines, but I don’t want to write a novella.

But I recently spoke with someone whose job was to visit far-flung stores for a big retailer and examine the operation from top to bottom. If this guy showed up, your store was likely already failing to meet sales and performance targets, and his job was to figure out why. And he told me that one thing nearly all of the troubled stores had in common was a lack of attention to detail. Sale signage wasn’t posted on a timely basis or was left up long past the expiration date. In an effort to cut costs in the face of flagging sales, store managers would be forced to cut staff, and one of the first places they cut was the floor sales staff. Which solved the short-term problem. But it also meant that when customers came into the store, there was no one available to answer questions or point people in the right direction. It was a short-term solution that ensured the problems facing the store would only get worse.

“No business ever has enough money,” he explained. “But what separates success and failure is being willing to endure short-term pain in order to make long-term success possible.”

In other words, all businesses engage in their own version of “Moneyball.” How can data and strategic decision-making be used in a way that will maximize every dollar I have to spend?

I’ll argue that for all of its successes, Netflix has prioritized increasing engagement with growth, rather than focusing on the short-term pain of improving the way it executes its content strategy. It’s a less sexy subject. But it’s the best way for Netflix to increase engagement from 2% to 5% or more. And that is a winning solution.

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For Forbes, I wrote a lengthy piece early Thursday reporting that a federal judge dismissed separate antitrust lawsuits brought by Penske Media Corp. and Chegg against Google. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that the plaintiffs failed to establish the particular antitrust violations alleged under the Sherman Act. The companies had argued that Google used its search dominance to force publishers to provide content for AI products without compensation. The court concluded the plaintiffs did not plausibly allege an agreement required for reciprocal dealing.

Mehta also rejected Penske's tying claim regarding AI Overviews and general search. The judge found the plaintiffs lacked antitrust standing because their alleged losses occurred in publishing markets. Additionally, the court found the proposed publishing market definitions implausibly broad. Mehta declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over California unjust-enrichment claims. The final order dismissed both amended complaints entirely.

Here is a recap of other recent stories I posted on Forbes or TooMuchTV.com:

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2ND:
Adventure Time: Side Quests Season Two Premiere (Disney+/Hulu)
Africa: Earth’s Wild Home Series Premiere (NatGeo)
Bite Size Terror Series Premiere (Tubi)
Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune Season Premiere (ABC)
Doing Life (Netflix)
Forever, This Ring (Turnstr+)
Gamechangers: Mother/Athlete (The Roku Channel)
Gold Rush Season Premiere (Discovery)
Infirmary (Shudder)
I Would Rather Die Series Premiere (Prime Video)
Kill Jackie Series Premiere (AMC+)
#Love Series Premiere (Netflix)
Love After Lockup: Relationship Rehab Series Premiere (We TV)
Ready To Love Season Premiere (OWN)
Schumacher '94 – The Birth Of A Legend (Netflix)
The Apothecary Diaries (Crunchyroll)
The Last First: Winter K2 (Apple TV)
The Sisters Grimm (Apple TV)
The 39th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards (PBS)
The UnBelievable With Dan Aykroyd Season Premiere (History)
Tip Toe Series Premiere (Starz)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3RD:
A Doctor To Die For: The Sarah Harris Story (Lifetime)
A Knight To Remember (Hallmark)
A Tale Of The Secret Saint Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
Be My Guest with Ina Garten Season Premiere (Food Network)
Black Clover (Crunchyroll)
Get Jiro Series Premiere (Adult Swim)
#I'm Looking For A Zombie Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
Late Night Law Season Two Premiere (A&E)
Magical Explorer Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
Ranma ½ (Netflix)
Romelia War Chronicle Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)
Vertex Force Series Premiere (Crunchyroll)