‘Wonder Man’ Had 52% Audience Retention Yet Was Canceled As Broadcast TV Sees Higher Renewal Rates Than Streaming — Report

In an interesting turn of events, broadcast series are more likely to be renewed than those on streaming, according to a new report from data intelligence company Luminate.

The report, released Friday, found that the broadcast networks renewed 65% of their output in 2025 versus just 44% across the major SVOD services, bucking a conventional wisdom in the streaming era that the online medium would be TV’s best chance of longterm survival.

Now, as Luminate points out, the broadcasters have more limited budget ranges and programming slots, as well as more straightforward viewership data. All three of these factors make renewal decisions for broadcast series less complicated, and the annual return of the broadcast season forces the decisions to be made much quicker.

Streaming has already developed somewhat of a reputation for being unforgiving. These platforms churn out so much content that cancellations come at a higher rate as well, though the streamers don’t have to be nearly as swift in the decision making process, which puts many shows in limbo indefinitely. Luminate uses Netflix’s The Politician as an example, given the show hasn’t returned since 2020 and yet there’s been no formal status announcement.

Netflix often bears the brunt of the criticism in this regard, but Luminate’s study actually found that it had the highest renewal rate among all the major SVODs over the last several years, renewing about 50% of its U.S. slate, on average, from 2022 to 2025.

However, Luminate also finds that new hits with long-running potential are harder to come by. Freshman series represented only about 42% of U.S. scripted output across the major streamers in 2025, suggesting perhaps a course correction from an oversaturated market.

Audience retention is a better metric for understanding success in streaming. Luminate suggests the key benchmark is 50% retention rate, meaning at least half of the audience that started the first episode made it to the end.

That’s not always the case, though. Per Luminate’s data, Marvel’s Wonder Man (on Disney+), Prime Video’s On Call, and Netflix’s The Waterfront all exceeded that 50% benchmark and were still dropped. The Waterfront had the highest of them all with 62% of the audience sticking with the series in the first 12 weeks of release.

Wonder Man, particularly, was a perplexing case. The series, which Luminate says retained 52% of its audience over 12 weeks, was initially renewed for a second season. It was then axed a few months later.

This is not an exact science, and it depends largely on the service. For example, Apple TV appears to accept the lowest retention, particularly for prestige series like The Studio, which captured a 28% retention rate over 120 days. That’s even lower than The Last Frontier, which was the most-watched canceled series on the streamer in the last year or so, per Luminate.

Peacock is another streamer with a much lower retention threshold. The most-watched canceled series on the platform over the last year or so was The Copenhagen Test with 33%.

Overall, scripted is faring much better than unscripted despite some outlying hits like The Traitors, Dancing with the Stars, and Love Island. On streaming, only about 38% of unscripted series were renewed from 2022 to 2025.