[TheJoeMan]

Why is it the bean counters need to perfectly pair the cost of show A with views of show A? And then cheaper B to B? There’s a synergy in having the whole platform.

Your advice would be telling Apple to ditch the $10 headphone dongle because it has a low ROI, and they should be using the factory to crank out more iphones…

[Jeff_Brown]

That's not the exercise. The exercise is "make it if and only if it will generate more revenue than it costs[1]". That doesn't have to be because people watch it. A prestige show (Succession, say) can bring people to a platform where they end up watching something less demanding (Friends, say). Even if nobody watches the prestige show, therefore, it can still be worth it. That makes it hard to know what is profitable.

[1] where "cost" includes "opportunity cost"