Ben Gilbert
Co-founder of Acquired and venture partner at Pioneer Square Labs.
“I think the reason why every show is like eight episodes now instead of 22 to 24 is because in broadcast, it was an ad-based business model. So you needed something on the air always. … On streaming, the point of a new show is to get people to sign up for your service. And I'd be willing to bet that there's not a big difference between a great show with eight episodes and a great show with 20 episodes, how likely it is to get someone to sign up. … Once you wrap your mind around, oh, shows are now acquisition vehicles rather than ad inventory carriers, you sort of understand why shows are so different now than they used to be.”
Acquired · Startups & Venture · October 2026
In an episode on the business of Seinfeld, Gilbert explains why streamers value old sitcoms so highly: reruns keep subscribers, while new shows exist to win them. That split, he argues, also explains why seasons have got so short.
Transcript
Yes. So one big thing I wanted to talk about is why is Netflix buying this? Like, why is this particular asset and this category of assets, Seinfeld, The Office Friends, so valuable to a streaming service? Well, streamers need content to do two jobs. One is acquisition and the other is retention.
Yep. These are awesome retention vehicles.
Yes. So acquisition is a totally different thing. That's what the new content is for. That's the like super high polish thing you can market to get people to sign up for your service. And I think I'd be curious to get feedback from people in the entertainment industry. I think the reason why every show is like eight episodes now instead of 22 to 24 is because in broadcast, it was an ad-based business model. So you needed something on the air always. And then you needed to sell ads for eight minutes of every half hour. And so you'd take 22, you'd take 24, you'd take 30 episodes if someone could make you 30 if it was a good show because it suits your business model. On streaming, the point of a new show is to get people to sign up for your service. And I'd be willing to bet that there's not a big difference between a great show with eight episodes and a great show with 20 episodes, how likely it is to get someone to sign up. And these things are expensive now. It's, you know, eight, $10 million per episode for some of these high-polish ones. There's no way that the $10 million you spend on the 14th episode of a season is justified versus sinking it into the sixth episode of another show that you could do instead. Once you kind of like wrap your mind around, oh, shows are now acquisition vehicles rather than ad inventory carriers, you sort of understand why shows are so different now than they used to be.
Yep.
And the other thing, in addition to the fact that these seasons are really short, they're mostly not comedies. Yes. It's really weird. Like everything is a drama or spectacle or a sci-fi. And I was really grappling, like, why don't we see more Seinfelds now? Why are there so few things? Look like…
It might also be kind of as you see in the Seinfeld story when you're just doing comedy. It takes a while to get the audience hooked. You can't just like hook somebody right away with an incredible drama or a flashy sci-fi or something like that. Like, it's a slow burn, and that just doesn't make…
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