Streaming: Netflix releases first viewing figures

For the past two years, Netflix has released a weekly top-10 ranking of its most popular formats of the previous seven days. Now the subscription streaming service says it will publish a semi-annual list, entitled "What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report" that will provide an overview of the total number of hours each title has been streamed.

The list will include all formats that were streamed a minimum of 50,000 hours over the previous six months. Netflix says that will reflect 99% of total streaming activity.

Figures merely provide orientation

The first half-year report, which has now been published, includes more than 18,000 titles.

At the top spot is the first season of the 10-part thriller series "The Night Agent," which started in March 2023 and was streamed 812,100,000 times in the first half of the year. Based on an average duration of 50 minutes per episode, the series would have been streamed in full around 1.62 million times in some three and a half months.

It is followed by comedy-drama series "Ginny & Georgia," season 2, and South Korean series "The Glory."

Netflix says the figures provide an orientation, but add that their significance is relativized by the fact that series have a longer running time than films. That means that a 10-part series with a total running time of 10 hours inevitably has more streaming hours than a one-and-a-half-hour movie. As a result, the top places in the report are occupied exclusively by series.

For its weekly top 10 list, Netflix has factored the total running time into the ranking. It has not yet said whether it intends to do the same in the future for the semi-annual report. But in its press release, the streamer called the new report "a big step forward for Netflix and our industry."

Netflix has long been criticized for a lack of transparency. One of the issues at stake in the recent strikes by Hollywood writers and actors was the company's refusal to release its streaming figures, even though they are necessary as basis for negotiating fees or residual payments for reruns.

This article was originally published in German.