The way Netflix measures the viewership of its series has long raised many doubts. Many people pointed out that 28 days from the release date is too short a time to allow a given production to break out. It works differently on the HBO Max or Disney+ platforms, where series have much more time to collect their viewership since the premiere.
Changes to how Netflix views viewership
Because Netflix only gave its shows four weeks to build a Top 10 position, the production had to be an instant hit to be considered. From now on, the series will try to become popular for 91 days, i.e. for three times longer than before.
This is a good move, as less popular titles will now be able to be noticed between big hits, and subscribers will have more time to see what’s new. However, this is not the only change that the now most popular streaming service has introduced.
The Top 10 will be arranged differently now, as Netflix customers reported that they do not understand what “watch time” actually is. The portal shared an e-mail sent by the streaming service, in which it informed why it decided to finally introduce a small reform:
We’ve heard feedback that simply listing watch hours on our Top 10 lists was hard to understand in context, so in recent months we’ve started sharing view counts for many of our titles (i.e. watch hours divided by total duration). This has proven to be a more meaningful metric for many people, and while we’ll continue to show watch hours for each title, our Top 10 lists will now be organized by view count.
According to , this change will also make it easier for series whose episodes do not last long to gain popularity. Productions with half-hour episodes had no way to compete with series with hour-long episodes, which necessarily had to be watched longer. Thanks to this change, “Queen Charlotte” is still among the most popular series, which no longer has to compete in duration with longer productions.
There has been a reshuffling of the all-time Netflix Top 10
The new methodology meant that “Stranger Things” is no longer in the first place in the list of the most popular English-language series. The leader position now belongs to “Wednesday” with 252.1 million “views”. The production about the adventures of the youngest member of the Addams family is ahead of the 4th season of “Stranger Things” (140.7 million “views”), although the latter title has 7% more total watch time. This made the production about teenagers from Hawkins in second place.
The following places belong to such productions as: “Dahmer – The Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (115.6 million views), “Bridgertons” season 1 (113.3 million) and “The Queen’s Gambit” (112.8 million) followed by “Night Agent”, “Stranger Things” season 3, “Bridgertons” season 2, “The Witcher” season 1 and “The Watcher” season 1. Series like “Lucifer” and “Who’s Anna?” disappeared from the list.
When it comes to non-English language productions, the South Korean series “Squid Game” still holds the top spot with a total of 265 million “views”. The second place in this ranking belongs to the Spanish “House of Paper”, which has 106 million views.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
