Netflix goes deeper on viewing data
December 13, 2023
Netflix has announced it will start, with immediate effect, giving more insight into what subscribers are watching.
In a blog post, the streamer said: “Starting today we will publish What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report twice a year. This is a comprehensive report of what people watched on Netflix over a six month period.”
Netflix says this will include:
- Hours viewed for every title — original and licensed — watched for over 50,000 hours;
- The premiere date for any Netflix TV series or film; and
- Whether a title was available globally.
In total, this report covers more than 18,000 titles — representing 99 per cent of all viewing on Netflix — and nearly 100 billion hours viewed.
Over 60 per cent of Netflix titles released between January and June 2023 appeared on the company’s weekly Top 10 lists. So while this report is broader in scope, it says the trends reflected in it are very similar to those in the Top 10 lists, including:
- The strength of returning favorites such as Ginny & Georgia, Alice in Borderland, The Marked Heart, Outer Banks, You, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, XO Kitty and film sequels Murder Mystery 2 and Extraction 2;
- The popularity of new series such as The Night Agent, The Diplomat, Beef, The Glory, Alpha Males, FUBAR and Fake Profile, which generate huge audiences and fandoms;
- The size of the audience of films across every genre including The Mother, Luther: The Fallen Sun, You People, AKA, ¡Que viva México! and Hunger;
- The enthusiasm for non-English stories, which generated 30 per cent of all viewing;
- The staying power of titles on Netflix, which extends well beyond their premieres. All Quiet on the Western Front, for example, debuted in October 2022 and generated 80M hours viewed between January and June; and
- The demand for older, licensed titles, which generates tremendous value for our members and for rights holders.
When reading the report, Netflix says it’s important to remember:
- Success on Netflix comes in all shapes and sizes, and is not determined by hours viewed alone. [We] have enormously successful movies and TV shows with both lower and higher hours viewed. It’s all about whether a movie or TV show thrilled its audience — and the size of that audience relative to the economics of the title; and
- To compare between titles it’s best to use Netflix’s weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists, which take into account run times and premiere dates.
The blog added: “This is a big step forward for Netflix and our industry. We believe the viewing information in this report — combined with our weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists — will give creators and our industry deeper insights into our audiences, and what resonates with them.”
“This is the actual data that we use to run the business,” Ted Sarandos said. “I’m the co-CEO of a public company, so sharing bad information has consequences. This is probably more information than you need, but I think it creates a better environment for the guilds, for us, for the producers, for creators and for the press.”
Season one of The Night Agent, a Netflix original thriller starring Gabriel Basso, was revealed as the service’s most-viewed show during the past six months, garnering 812 million viewing hours. The Mother, starring Jennifer Lopez, was Netflix’s top movie title.