Why Netflix Changed Its Own Measurement System
Netflix, which used to guard its ratings from the public like the Mona Lisa, is changing up its own viewership metrics for greater transparency. (Then again, Netflix used to be against commercials too.)
Previously, the streaming giant ranked its Top 10 shows and movies based on hours viewed. It also cut off its all-time Most Popular lists at 28 days of available viewership. Now, the weekly Top 10 will be ranked by “views” (hours viewed divided by runtime) and the all-time lists are being elongated by nine weeks, to 91 days.
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That’s a full quarter of a year, the same basis on which Netflix and other publicly traded companies report their financial results. It’s important to Netflix that the number be divisible by seven, to capture a whole number of weeks. It’s why the old way was 28 days, not 30 or 31, and why it’s now 91, not 90.
Our delayed-viewing culture gives credence to those additional 63 days. It’s true, as Netflix put it in a Tuesday blog post (see below), that “many” Netflix shows and films “grow significantly over time.” That context is valid and important, but let’s be honest: It also gooses Netflix’s numbers in a pretty self-serving way.
In recent weeks, Netflix began sprinkling “views” in with its regular metrics in emails to press. An example from last Tuesday: “‘Never Have I Ever’ returned for its fourth and final season with 76.21M hours viewed. Starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the coming-of-age series had over 15M views (76.2M hours viewed divided by 4.9 runtime hours).”
The feedback has been positive, both from the media and creators, a Netflix insider told IndieWire. After all, the concept of a “view” is much more digestible than a gigantic number of (millions of) hours. (It’s not a wholly different concept as Nielsen ratings points vs. total viewers. The general public doesn’t understand a ratings point, but they understand 3 million viewers.) Plus, the post-division smaller numbers are easier on the eyes and brain.
Probably no coincidence — in timing, at least — is that the WGA and other guilds are currently fighting with studios over, among other things, more transparency from streamers — especially Netflix. This may not necessarily be more transparent, but it’s cleaner.
It’s also more fair. The old way disproportionately rewarded longer runtimes, making third-party procedurals look far more impactful than the most culturally relevant limited series.
The semantics — and the arithmetic — make a difference. “Wednesday” Season 1 is now Netflix’s all-time most-watched show, not “Stranger Things 4.” Additionally, “The Queen’s Gambit” is now fifth all-time; the limited series wasn’t even on the list before.
On the film side, Mark Wahlberg movie “Spenser Confidential” and family film “We Can Be Heroes” are now among the Most Popular features. Both newcomers have runtimes under two hours, which previously created a challenge. Read more instant changes to the Most Popular lists here.
No matter how you slice it, South Korean series “Squid Game” Season 1 is still the biggest piece of content Netflix has had. Netflix will not revise the weekly lists it has published since June 2021, a spokesperson told us.
Netflix summed today’s changes up in a blog post; read that below.
We heard feedback that only providing hours viewed on our Top 10 lists was hard to contextualize, so over the last few months we started to share the views for a good number of our titles (i.e. the number of hours viewed divided by the total run time).
This proved to be a more relatable metric for many people, so starting today, while we will continue to show hours viewed per title, our Top10 lists will now be ranked by views. We will also extend the qualifying time for our most popular lists from around one month (28 days) to three months (91 days) given that many of our shows and films grow significantly over time.
As we have always said there is no one perfect streaming metric. But we believe that views combined with total hours viewed is a good evolution because it’s:
Anchored in engagement — our best measure of member satisfaction and a key driver of retention (which in turn drives our business);
Ensures longer titles don’t get an advantage; and
Enables third parties to compare the relative impact of movies and series — despite their different run times.
Our hope is that by being consistent and transparent about what people are watching, Netflix can give everyone — consumers, creators, analysts and press — better insights into what success in streaming looks like more generally. We will continue to share more granular, title-specific data with creators, and as always, we’ll continue to listen to feedback.
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