Bridgerton Season 3 premieres on Netflix on Thursday, May 16. It’s a release we’ve waited a long time for, but there came some bad news with the release. We won’t get all eight episodes together.
Instead, this is another series that Netflix is splitting over the course of two months. The second half of the season will arrive a month later, on Thursday, June 13. Now fans of the series want to know why they need to wait to binge-watch the entire season considering Netflix has always followed the binge model for these types of shows.
Bridgerton Season 3, Part 2 shouldn’t need more time
There is always the argument of delays due to post-production processes. We can look at Amazon and the release of Invincible for that argument. The first four episodes came out in November 2023 and then the second half of the season followed in March 2024. After such a long wait for the start of the season, it made sense to get as much out as possible and then have a short delay for the rest of the season.
That doesn’t seem to be the reason for Bridgerton, though. The second half of the season is coming out almost exactly a month after the first half of the season. That suggests that post-production on the second half is ready for us.
This is a strategic decision by Netflix for money.
Two months of subscription for one series
The benefit of releasing it in two parts is that Netflix gets more money. Some people will only sign up to Netflix for specific shows, cancelling their subscription as soon as they’ve binge-watched something. By splitting the release over the space of two months, people now need to subscribe for two months to be able to binge-watch each drop.
There are going to be some people who wait for the June release of Bridgerton. However, Netflix knows that most people will watch in May and then follow up with the second half in June.
With the cost of the production of shows going up, it does make sense to try to get as much money from subscribers as possible. Splitting in two parts with a binge-watch model is more favorable than a weekly release for a lot of people.
Bridgerton Season 3, Part 1 arrives on Thursday, May 16 on Netflix.