How Much Would a 5th Season of ‘Succession’ Be Worth? | Charts

Did HBO end “Succession” too soon?

If the network’s bean-counters had any say, they might have kept it going, though it wasn’t up to them: Show creator Jeremy Armstrong had already made it clear that the show’s fourth season would be its last.

But the hypothetical notion of following the Roy family’s saga into the future is compelling, if only because a detailed analysis of demand for the show reveals the financial contribution that a hit show can make in the age of streaming.

There was strong momentum going into the series finale of “Succession” last month. The penultimate episode had driven a record level of demand for the show, peaking at 70 times the demand for the average series. More broadly, the final season was the most in-demand across its four-season run, a testament to the critically acclaimed series’ ability to grow interest season over season at a point where most multi-season series lose steam.

Considering increasing demand for the series over the years, an exceptional off-season decay rate that doesn’t see viewership taper off as significantly compared to other series when new episodes are no longer airing and its ability to acquire and retain subscribers, Parrot Analytics’ Content Valuation analysis estimates that “Succession” is on pace to contribute $850 million in revenue to HBO by 2027 with four seasons.

That may sound like a lot, but considering Warner Bros. Discovery reported nearly $2.5 billion in direct-to-consumer revenue in its first quarter of 2023, that’s a relatively small contribution. But since CEO David Zaslav has promised the money-losing division would turn profitable this year, every dollar counts.

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A hypothetical fifth season would have generated a projected $237 million in revenue on top of this for the company, according to our forecast. Considering an estimated production budget of $90 million per season, extending “Succession” would have turned a tidy profit for HBO that might have impressed even Logan Roy.

Such totals reflect the show’s strong appeal as “Succession” was among the top 0.2% most in-demand shows in the U.S. over the last 90 days. If we want to further understand the value of “Succession” to HBO and Max, we can break down its impact into an acquisition and retention component — the degree to which “Succession” is persuading either new customers to sign up or current customers to stay.

Based on the viewing patterns of the “Succession” audience, we can attribute 70% of its value to its ability to acquire new subscribers and 30% to the show’s ability to retain users and prevent them from churning. If we apply this breakdown to the opportunity cost of forgoing a fifth season ($237 million), this means Warner Bros. Discovery will need to find about 965,000 gross subscriptions and reduce monthly churn by about 0.03% to make up for the lack of a new season of “Succession.” Again, that’s a pretty small percentage of the company’s subscriber base — Warner Bros. Discovery reported 97.6 million direct-to-consumer subscribers at the end of March — but Zaslav has talked extensively about the need to reduce the division’s churn.

Parrot estimated the revenue contribution of a show in a given quarter and region by examining the correlation between demand and streaming revenue reported in corporate earnings. Considering the nearly one-to-one relationship between demand and subscriber growth, we can measure how much money each title contributed to the service’s revenue. Taking into account demand growth over time and other metrics related to a show’s ability to acquire and retain subscribers, we can project the future revenue contributions of this show and the overall value over a certain time period.

Christofer Hamilton is a senior insights analyst at Parrot Analytics, a WrapPRO partner. For more from Parrot Analytics, visit the Data and Analysis Hub.

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