Why don't they budget a cancellation fail-safe into a series' cost and save money for a proper send off?

I'm just thinking out loud (in writing) about something I have no experience in, but I feel like this is at least worth a debate (even if it's to tell me this makes absolutely no sense).

Let's say you institute a 15% fund for each and every series. For every 100USD in production costs, you set aside 15.

With 10 episodes season, a flop that gets cancelled after the first season gets 1.5 extra episodes to wrap things up, which could probably be turned into a double-length series finale.

2 seasons? 3 ep mini series. 3 seasons? That's almost half an extra season for a proper send off.

In sum, the more successful a series is, the better conditions it gets to film a satisfying ending.

Now, this is just a thought experiment. You don't need to literally save 15% every season, and maybe this is too much, I don't know.

Of course, season/episode costs are not so straight forward, and maybe a 15% budget slash is too much, you'd have to figure out how to make it work in the actors' contracts etc.

I'm just thinking that I'd be really inclined to subscribe to a streaming service that was committed to a policy like that.

Before, if a series was not performing well, they'd rush episodes in bad time slots to open up space for something new. Sometimes they stopped post-production altogether. Today, you can stream series on demand, it's not taking up airtime.

I, for one, always look up if a series got a satisfying ending before I watch something. Series with some kind of planned ending are definitely more valuable.

Submitted April 28, 2019 at 11:10AM by LiarsEverywhere http://bit.ly/2W7acZy