Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor star in the Netflix series “Bridgerton.”
Netflix
Creators rejoice: Netflix has finally revealed the viewing stats on nearly all of its shows and movies.
Netflix released its first “What We Watched” report on Tuesday, which ranks nearly all of its shows and movies by hours watched over the past six months. The company said Netflix will issue updated reports every six months.
Netflix has long had a reputation for lacking transparency about the popularity of its shows and movies. This has led to some mistrust in the creative community, co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. Sarandos said Netflix kept its viewing data private as it built its business so it could experiment while not giving the data away to potential competitors.
“This is the actual data that we use to run the business,” Sarandos said. “I’m the co-CEO of a public company, so sharing bad information has consequences.”
Netflix now has nearly 250 million subscribers globally, far more than any other streaming service. This gives Sarandos confidence that he can be open about viewership statistics. Hollywood actors and writers cited increased transparency during their strikes earlier this year as they campaigned to get money in line with how audiences consume their content. Netflix has also launched an advertising layer that requires more transparency as brands want information about how many times certain shows and movies have been watched.
“This is probably more information than you need, but I think it creates a better environment for the unions, for us, for the producers, for the creators and the press,” Sarandos said.
“The Night Agent: Season 1,” a Netflix original thriller series, was the most-watched show on the service over the past six months, with 812 million hours watched. “the mom,” The film starring Jennifer Lopez was the top film on the streaming service. From January to June, 55% of Netflix views came from original movies and series and 45% from licensed titles, Sarandos said.
Netflix revealed viewing information for more than 18,000 titles, representing 99% of its total views, and all titles were watched for more than 50,000 hours.
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