For the first time, Netflix publishes figures on how long we watch something – these are the top 20

Netflix is ​​becoming increasingly transparent when it comes to information about the success of films and series on the platform. For the first time, the streaming market leader published figures on how many hours of thousands of films and series were watched in the first half of this year. Such reports must now be submitted twice a year.

While traditional television has a ratings system that has been developed over decades, streaming services often keep a low profile when it comes to information about the success of their programs. Netflix has been publishing a ranking of the most popular titles for two years.

For Netflix, this was the right path in the early years because it did not want to provide rivals with data, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during a conference call on Tuesday. In some cases, this also led to distrust in the TV industry, even though more information was shared with the producers of the individual films and series. Publishing the information should clear this up. “It’s basically the data we use to manage our business,” Sarandos says.

According to the now published list, the first season of the series ‘The Night Agent’ was the most watched title in the first half of 2023 – with a total of 812.1 million hours. At the same time, Netflix is ​​restrictive, so the figures provide some guidance – but are also put into perspective by the fact that series have different running times and films are generally shorter.

Sarandos emphasized that the release of the data has nothing to do with the expansion of the advertising industry, as other services use standard industry procedures to measure audience numbers. Since Netflix introduced a cheaper plan with ads, it has quickly gained customers — and the streaming service could attract more ad spending from traditional TV. (pre/sda)