Netflix shares viewer data for 1st time, The Night Agent on top spot

Netflix has taken a stride toward transparency in viewership data by unveiling user engagement statistics, and disclosing what content has garnered the highest viewership. This move comes as part of the platform's first biannual report, shedding light on six months of streaming habits. For the first time, the report provides insights into the performance of licensed content, such as the US Network drama 'Suits,' in comparison to Netflix's original productions, as reported by Variety.

Titled 'What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report,' the comprehensive report encompasses over 18,000 titles and reveals insights from nearly 100 billion hours viewed between January and June 2023.

As per Variety, it includes hours viewed for every title (both Netflix original and licensed TV shows and movies) watched for more than 50,000 hours during that period, the premiere date for any Netflix original TV series or film, and whether a title was available globally.

At the top of this report is ‘The Night Agent’, a series that debuted globally March 23 and racked up 812 million hours viewed by the end of June. It was followed by Season 2 of the family drama ‘Ginny & Georgia’ with 665.1 million hours of viewing and ‘The Glory’, a South Korean series with 622.8 million hours of viewing.

‘Wednesday’ landed fourth spot as Netflix’s top English-language series of all time -- not because it was a less popular series, but because it came out in November 2022, and a good chunk of its massive audience had already completed the show by the January 1 start date for this report.

The report by Netflix comes after a long fight between Hollywood labour unions and major studios. Following the WAG and SAG-AFTRA strikes, writers and actors won more compensation for their work in streaming, and their pay in a way also is affected by the greater disclosure of US viewer data by services like Netflix.

Additionally, the report focuses on hours viewed versus Netflix’s new favoured way of representing its weekly Top 10 lists, which is by estimated viewers.

However, Netflix says that more than 60 per cent of its titles released between January and June 2023 appeared on their weekly Top 10 lists, so there is a large amount of crossover between titles on the report and the standing week-to-week rankings.
(With IANS inputs)

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