After several months of experimentation, Netflix said on Tuesday that effective immediately it is switching its viewership metric from “hours viewed” to “views”.
The views metric is a calculation based on the number of hours viewed divided by the total run time of the film or episode. The streamer described views on its blog on Tuesday as a “good evolution” in a sector where it conceded there is no perfect streaming metric.
Going forward Netflix’s Top 10 lists will be ranked by views and the qualifying time will be stretched out from 28 days to 91 in recognition that titles can gain traction over a longer period of time.
The latest June 12-18 English-language film chart was led by the Chris Hemsworth Extraction action franchise claiming the top two spots.
New arrival Extraction 2 led the way on 42.8m views – calculated by dividing 88.38m hours viewed by the two hours and seven minutes run time – followed by the 2020 original on 9.6m views (18.8m hours viewed divided by one hour and 68 minutes).
Netflix said in the blog it hoped the new metric would offer “better insights into what success in streaming looks like more generally”.
Filmmakers, Wall Street and the press have long commented on the streamer’s lack of transparency over its data. One of the key demands made by the striking Writers Guild Of America is for enhanced streamer residuals, which would need to be based on greater access to viewership numbers, although it seems likely the Guild would want to see Netflix go further still.
An extract from the blog appears below:
We heard feedback that only providing hours viewed on our Top 10 lists was hard to contextualize, so over the last few months we started to share the views for a good number of our titles (i.e. the number of hours viewed divided by the total run time).
This proved to be a more relatable metric for many people, so starting today, while we will continue to show hours viewed per title, our Top10 lists will now be ranked by views. We will also extend the qualifying time for our most popular lists from around one month (28 days) to three months (91 days) given that many of our shows and films grow significantly over time.
As we have always said there is no one perfect streaming metric. But we believe that views combined with total hours viewed is a good evolution because it’s:
- Anchored in engagement — our best measure of member satisfaction and a key driver of retention (which in turn drives our business);
- Ensures longer titles don’t get an advantage; and
- Enables third parties to compare the relative impact of movies and series — despite their different run times.
Our hope is that by being consistent and transparent about what people are watching, Netflix can give everyone — consumers, creators, analysts and press — better insights into what success in streaming looks like more generally. We will continue to share more granular, title-specific data with creators, and as always, we’ll continue to listen to feedback.
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