[thenomad]

Yes, usually you'd have to consider syndication rights, DVD sales, merch, etc when looking at a show's overall profitability.

OTOH, it would appear in many cases those rights aren't going to Netflix directly. See

https://www.wired.com/2014/03/comcast-bites-netflix-snagging...

, for example.

(Of course, this is how Netflix is getting so many shows made - they're trading those rights to the production company in exchange for not footing the entire production cost.)

It's worth noting, though, that those will scale strongly with the initial success of the show. Breaking Bad DVD sales were huge. The sales of DVDs of, say, "Alphas" on Sci-Fi will not be nearly as impressive.

As for subscribe numbers - I don't have hard figures, but based on years of persuading people to watch video-based narrative content I'd guess 5% of total viewers for a weak show, 10% for a strong show or one that's capturing a new audience, 18% for one that's both very strong and targeted at a radically new audience. Occasional outliers like Breaking Bad and Game Of Thrones will probably provide higher capture for the subscription services showing them, but they're 1-3 times a decade phenomena.