‘It created an atmosphere of mistrust’: Ted Sarandos tells us why Netflix is finally releasing its viewing data
Netflix has released viewing data for over 18,000 titles streaming globally across its platform – a massive dataset that offers the best insight into the once-secretive streaming service’s viewing figures to date.
Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, made the announcement this morning on a media call with some of the world’s biggest outlets (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Mumbrella, Hollywood Reporter – you know the ilk), where he explained the reasoning behind releasing the figures now — especially given the company had been notoriously secretive regarding how many viewers its programs had in the past.
Starting from today, the company will publish What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report, every six months. Today’s report covers the first six months of 2023 and spans more than 18,000 titles, representing 99% of all viewing on Netflix, and encompassing nearly 100 billion hours viewed.
It’s a less compelling offering than what it may seem. The data is ordered by hours viewed, not the amount of time that a program or movie is watched, and is presented as an unwieldy Excel file.
Sarandos stressed this report is not made for direct comparisons, given that shows and films have different run times.
It is also intended for the industry, rather than as a public chart, or ranking system. The ‘Top 10’ lists the streamer releases, by country, serve this purpose, Sarandos said, and are also more of a real-time pulse, given this report will be issued just twice a year. “It’s more industry-facing, in terms of what things are pleasing people around the world,” he said of the bi-annual report.
So why issue such an unwieldy data dump?
This is part of Netflix being “gradually being more transparent” with its numbers, as Sarandos explained, a process that started with the launch of its Top Ten and Most Popular show lists in 2021.
“It created an atmosphere of mistrust,” Sarandos confesses of the company’s prior secrecy regarding its exact viewing figures. The release of such a huge data trove may appear to be overcompensation for the “unintended consequences” of previously keeping their cards glued to their chest, but Netflix are determined to counter what Sarandos calls the “environment of mistrust around the data”.
“This is probably more information than you need,” he said. This is true, but it’s also less – and presented in a less-than-satisfying way.
Netflix will not be breaking the data down by country or region, nor do they have any plans to release this data on a more frequent basis.
“We don’t intend to do country-level lists because it’s an enormous amount of competitive intelligence we’d be putting out there,” Sarandos said, calling such a release a “data set for our competitors” and noting this information is already available to the creators of the programs. With this in mind, he noted that a number of shows with seemingly low streaming hours, globally, are “thrilling the local audiences” they are intended for.
Again, this list is not for comparisons between programs.
Transparency is key to this release, and the rawness of the dataset is part of this.
“We’ve always had this data, we’re just sharing it with you now,” Sarandos said at one point. When questioned on its validity, he noted, “I’m the co-CEO of a public company, so sharing bad information has consequences.”
Mumbrella asked Sarandos why present the data in such a format, and were told Netflix is simply trying to be transparent.
“Can I just remind you, too, that this is the data that we use to run the business,” he added.
“This is the exact same pool of data that we’re sharing with you.”
Here’s the top reaches of the report, lead by The Night Agent, Ginny & Georgia, and The Glory.
Fun fact: Globally, there was 43.2 million hours of season six of Seinfeld streamed on Netflix over the first six months of the year.
Disney, Amazon, et al. It’s your move.
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