As streamers go, Netflix has always played close to its chest with its coveted viewership data. Now, with a shift in how they judge and report what data metrics we do receive from them, there could be a mass shakeup in viewership stats for their programming and other data. Blake & Wang P.A’s Brandon Blake, our expert entertainment lawyer, breaks the change down.
A Tech-Based Change
Instead of the hours viewed, a model which has been in play for Netflix and other streaming entities on platforms like Nielsen for upward of a decade at this point, Netflix will now simply report ‘views’. You don’t need much tech-savvy to recognize that as a term more commonly used on platforms like Instagram and YouTube then in Hollywood, and we can only assume that homogenisation is the idea behind it.
These new ‘views’ will be defined as the hours viewed divided by the total runtime of the content. While Netflix will still be reporting on the hours viewed model for some products, their Top 10 rankings and Most Popular lists will now use the new metric. We’ve also seen them expand their measurement window from the current 28 days to a broader 91 days, something that’s hoped to give their content more time to ‘grow’ with audiences.
Changed Rankings
This shift in how they use data has already significantly changed how those two lists appear. While Squid Game remains their most popular series to date, and Dahmer clung on to its third-place spot, Bridgerton pushed Queen Charlotte out of the number 4 spot, and both The Queen’s Gambit and The Watcher take new spots. Likewise, Inventing Anna and Lucifer have slunk out of sight. Wednesday zooms past Stranger Things 4 to take the title of most popular English-language series to date.
The move should correct some issues with the hours viewed model, however- namely allowing easier comparisons with other companies’ products as well as reducing the advantage longer-format content has over items like films and shorter series. It should also give series without a strong IP a good boost in the rankings, allowing it to increase organically in popularity over time. It’s not without pitfalls- namely the big one of assuming every user accessing content finishes it, so there’s in-built view count inflation. But it does better align with how third-parties like Nielsen report their data, which is a great development to see.
Film and Television 