Netflix had never communicated its audience data very clearly, except on rare occasions and in a very circumspect manner.
Furthermore, as we know, it considered content seen even for only two minutes as viewed, whether it was a film or the first episode of a TV series. Now all this changes.
Netflix has launched Top10.Netflix.com , a site that will update every Tuesday and will report the Top 10 of the categories of films and series, divided between products in English and other languages. Red Notice , which marked the best debut day ever for a film on the platform, obviously ranks first in the English language film chart with 148.72 million viewing hours in the week of November 8-14, followed by Love. Hard (58.56 million) and The Harder They Fall (33.06 million). The Italian Yara is instead first among the films in non-English language with 17.95 million hours.
As for the English TV series, in first place we find the season 3 of Narcos: Mexico (50.29 million hours), followed by Arcane (34.17) and the third season of YOU (33.72). It goes without saying that Squid Game ranks first among non-English series with 42.79 million viewing hours over the past week.
Top 10 clubs
Netflix will also publish Top 10 local movies and TV series in each of the more than 90 countries where the service is active (without saying the hours, in that case) and, occasionally, special lists, for example on documentaries or reality shows. . Finally, there are lists of the most popular films and series (in English and non-English) based on viewing hours in the first 28 days, a time window previously used to determine the most successful Netflix originals, but now without the controversial issue of famous two minutes.
On Top10.Netflix.com you can read some explanations on how this new service works. For example, it is explained that each season of a series is considered on its own in the calculation. For this reason, in the relative Top 10 you can find more seasons of a series (this is the case of YOU and Narcos: Mexico ). In addition, the data is calculated Monday through Sunday of the previous week and published on the Tuesday of the following week. The data starts from June 28, 2021.
The new metrics
Pablo Perez de Rosso , Netflix Vice President, Content Strategy, Planning & Analysis, wrote:
Since these are our own assessments, we have entrusted the verification of our new metrics to an independent consulting firm (EY), whose results we will publish in 2022.
It’s hard to figure out the best way to measure success in the streaming universe, and there are no perfect metrics. Traditional counts, such as box office success or share (a concept born to help advertisers understand success in linear TV), are of no relevance to most streaming service providers, including Netflix. After evaluating the different possibilities, we believe that the engagement measured in hours of viewing is a reliable index of the popularity of a title, as well as of the general satisfaction of the users, an important factor for the retention of subscribers.