Netflix Adjusts Viewership Metric, Prompting Shakeups Among Most Popular
Netflix has made some big changes to the way it reports streaming viewership.
The streamer will now report in average viewership for its programming as “views,” which is hours viewed divided by total runtime. While hours viewed will still be available, Netflix will now use this new metric for its Top 10 rankings, including the all-time Most Popular lists.
Additionally, Netflix has expanded the measurement window from 28 days to 91 days, in an effort to give films and shows time to grow.
This means some major shakeups, including Wednesday overtaking Stranger Things 4 as the most popular English-language series of all time. This is quite significant, considering that Stranger Things 4 benefitted from its whopping 13-hour runtime. It would have been difficult for any series to beat that, let alone one that was half that length like Wednesday (which speaks even more to the impressive viewership for the Addams Family series).
Squid Game still remains Netflix’s most popular series ever, even after the shift. Dahmer held onto third place, but Bridgerton Season 1 overtook its successor for fourth. There are several other shifts, which you can view here. Most notable are the new entrants to the most popular list, The Watcher and The Queen’s Gambit. Meanwhile, Lucifer and Inventing Anna were bumped off.
Since 2021, the streamer has reported weekly viewership in terms of hours viewed. It was a helpful metric considering that most streaming data remains behind closed doors, so any glimpse at viewing habits was appreciated. But, it did not allow for much comparison outside of Netflix’s own programming. It also heavily favored content with longer run times, which generally are drama series. By calculating average viewership, impact can be better examined across all film and TV on the streamer.
A recent example of this is Queen Charlotte‘s failure to make it onto the most popular list in its 28-day window, despite an impressive debut for the Bridgerton prequel. Coming in at just under six hours in length, the series was at a severe disadvantage when it came to making it onto the list, because every series to make it at that point had been at least eight hour-long episodes.
By these new standards, Queen Charlotte now remains in play. The series has only been available for 47 days, meaning that it still has plenty of time to make its way into the most popular list, especially now that its shorter runtime won’t hinder it. This week, Queen Charlotte is once again among the Top 10, which indicates continued popularity among viewers that increases those chances even more.
This week’s Top 10 also provides a glimpse at how the new metric will give half-hour comedies, which are generally at a disadvantage, a better chance at success. Season 4 of Never Have I Ever, which debuted on June 8, was crowned atop the English-language TV charts with 11.5M views from June 12 to June 18. Seasons 1 and 3 also made it onto the list.
Season 4 has a runtime of approximately 200 minutes, meaning that the series drew about 37M hours viewed during that measurement window. While it’s certainly possible that Never Have I Ever could have prevailed even with the old metric, it would have been increasingly difficult, especially if it were competing with any new shows with significantly longer run times.
The expanded measurement window will also be particularly helpful for programs that don’t have powerful IP, like Stranger Things or Knives Out. This way, this content has more time to strike a chord with viewers and increase in popularity over time.
Netflix’s new way of calculating views isn’t exactly perfect. Of course, it assumes that every time a user watches a new piece of content, they make it all the way through every single time, which is ultimately inflating unique views. In reality, it’s more likely that some users are watching multiple times, while many never make it to the end the first time. However, average viewership is a metric that will enable audience comparisons across streaming and linear television, given that this is how Nielsen and other third parties report linear viewership.
Nielsen currently reports streaming viewership in minutes viewed, which allows for the same disadvantages as Netflix’s old metric.
Source: Deadline
