The success of a series or movie on Netflix has so far been measured by the number of hours each series or movie has been watched. Now it’s over. Netflix continues to show the viewed hours in its Netflix top ten, but then divides it by the duration of the movie or series. This results in a new unit of measurement: the views. And based on that, the Netflix charts are ranked from now on.
An example: ‘Red Notice’ with Dwayne Johnson (so far and also in the new ranking the most watched English-language film on Netflix) was viewed 454.2 million hours. The actioner has a running time of 1:58 hours. This results in: 230.9 million views.
Change 1: New unit of measure in views
These views could, in theory, mean how many times the movie has been viewed in its entirety. In practice, of course, things are different: maybe many people have only watched half of “Red Notice”, while others have watched the whole thing three times. This is not taken into account. So the new “views” don’t really say exactly how many people have seen the movie in its entirety, but are just a construction – Hours just watched by playing time, regardless of how many individual people watched those hours at the end.
With this brand new stat, Netflix responds to a criticism that has been leveled in the past: Because the total viewing time naturally varied greatly depending on the length of a film or a series – and was nevertheless compared with each other. For example, how could “Queen Charlotte: A Story of Bridgerton” with six episodes ever have a chance to compete in total viewing time with an eight-episode or even 10-episode Netflix series? If you divide the hours watched by the duration of a series or a movie, you get a fairer comparison.
“Wednesday” Dethrones “Stranger Things”
And that of course already has an impact on the official Netflix top ten most popular films and series. There is a new number 1 in the English series: Was before”Strange thingsSeason 4 ahead with 1.838 billion viewing hours is now the first season of “Wednesdaythe new leader. “Wednesday” comes in with 252.1 million views, while “Stranger Things” season 4 is now in second place with 140.7 million views.
Following this change, the mini-series “The Queen’s Gambit” has now been re-entered the top ten all over again, thus eliminating “Inventing Anna”. Incidentally, for the non-English series “Squid game“Nose first. In terms of views, the high flyer from South Korea can’t be fooled either: “Squid Game” season 1 has 265.2 million views, more than twice as many as number 2, “Money Heist” season 4 has 106 million views.
Change 2: 91 instead of 28 days of measurement time
But we like talk about changes! The second is that Netflix no longer measures the success of a film or series for just 28 days, but for 91 days. Any hours viewed during this time will be included in the views at the end. As a result, series and films now have a longer chance to attract an audience, for example through word of mouth, before Netflix decides whether the product is a top or a flop.
Here’s the brand new Netflix top ten (as of June 21, 2023) in all four categories: Most popular movies each in English and other languages, and most popular series each in English and other languages.
As you can see there have been some changes in the all-time charts, not just in the series. New additions to the English language movies are the family movie “We Can Be Heroes” with Pedro Pascal and the action comedy “Spenser Confidential” with Mark Wahlberg. In contrast, “The Mother” featuring Jennifer Lopez, who had just entered the top ten, was eliminated. But re-entry is possible, after all, “The Mother” has only been running since May 12, so it has not yet passed the 91 days after which Netflix finally completes the measurement for its charts.