Meanwhile, Netflix’s Bridgerton, which was released on a binge model, built a significant fanbase with rapid initial viewership growth. In its second season, it achieved a 15-times trend growth above the traffic benchmark. When it shifted to a split two-part release strategy for the third season, it had 5 times the trend growth compared to the second season.

HBO’s House of the Dragon, which did weekly drops, led to a sustained viewership and engagement, highlighting the strength of the weekly release for maintaining fan interest over time. In the first season, the weekly release strategy led to high engagement with an 18-week post-season trend, while the second season, which just ended this month, showcased an initial two-times trend growth compared to the 1.5 times growth in the first season.

Finally, Hulu’s The Bear utilized the binge-release strategy for all three seasons with its highest engagement seen in the second season. All eight episodes of the first season that were released at once led to 18 times above the traffic benchmark, while the second season achieved another 18 times above the traffic benchmark. However, the third season saw a drop, ending up with 4 times the trend growth.

Fried said the second season of a series tends to be the strongest-performing season across all shows.

“That makes Season 2 even better because [The Bear] maintained that—and I’m assuming the baseline after season one was much higher because that show got really good word-of-mouth, so there was a steadier viewing that was happening between the seasons,” Fried said. “By the start of Season 2, the trend line was at a higher place. So to go 18 times is particularly impressive, although the show gained a lot of momentum with the Emmy nominations and things like that.”

Fried said that the drop in the third season could be related to the timing of the release or the promotion. She added that it doesn’t hurt for Hulu to experiment for the fourth season.

“Maybe the model is something that [Hulu] can play around with,” Fried said. “So maybe they try a weekly release or they try a binge release and see if that might get more conversation going.”

The third season of The Bear was mostly divided among fans, and many debated whether dropping the episodes all at once or every week would make more sense.

Fried said streaming services should benchmark their show release strategies to ultimately decide which strategy works best for them.

“They should always be analyzing how similar shows were dropped in terms of the scheduling to make sure they’re choosing the right model,” Fried said. “It’s a very important part of strategic planning for how they release a show—similar to what marketing they’re going to put behind it—is how they’re going to release it because it can have a serious impact on how many viewers and fans return to that show.”