Apple won’t even tell Ben Stiller how many of you are watching Severance

Apple

The first season of the show made our best entertainment of the year even as it painted a dark picture of how megacorporations think about and treat their employees. If you want to see a real-life example of that treatment, you have to ask the people who made Severance how big of a hit it really is.

Even though Ben Stiller is the executive producer and director of Severance, he couldn't get hold of detailed data on how many there were. He spoke in an interview with Decider.

You don't know the numbers. It is very strange. These graphs and charts have peaks and valleys. You have no idea what the baseline is. It could be based on 100 people or it could be 200 million people. We don't have a clue. They said that this is doing well. You are attempting to understand what they are saying.

It's consistent with how other streamers have frustrated their viewers, industry watchers, and at times the people who make their original content by refusing to cough up details on viewer data.

52 Emmy nominations and an award-hunting "special conversation" event are a good sign, but I want to know how Severance stacks up next to Better Call Saul. Is it possible to beat the RTX 3090 using real statistics? We know that Severance's performance is impressive, and having reasonable figures to help evaluate that could save everyone time and confusion.

The second season of Severance is already in the works regardless of how many people watch the show.

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