Secrets of the Netflix stats: What the viewing figures really tell us

The streamer has unveiled comprehensive viewing figures for the first time. The numbers are revealing about hits, flops and cancellations, writes Ed Power

Netflix is giving data nerds a Christmas present: audience figures for almost its entire catalogue of film and television shows. That’s a lot of numbers – and, significantly, it marks a notable pivot for a company that was known to be so fiercely protective of its stats.

Top of the list is The Night Agent, an unheralded thriller that has locked in millions of Netflix subscribers while enjoying none of the attention of a critical smash. It clocked up 812 million “viewing hours” – the metric by which Netflix measures the popularity of a show or movie – in the first six months of 2023.

The viewing hours model has its drawbacks. The focus on run-time favours shows over movies – and drama over comedy, which tends to come in shorter, 30-minute nuggets. Yet even with that caveat, the success of The Night Agent must be regarded as a shock given its relative lack of profile.

The same can be said of season two of Ginny & Georgia, an old-school, fish-out-of-water sitcom about a mother and her family who move to an affluent suburb of Massachusetts. According to Rolling Stone, it “seems like it was created by a streaming-service algorithm”.

The Night Agent is Netflix's most watched show of 2023. Photo / Netflix

Despite its obscurity, it ranks second in the countdown, clocking up more than 100 million more hours watched in the first half of 2023 than Tim Burton’s more celebrated Wednesday, which comes in at four. There’s a lot of reality TV in the top 20, too – including Love Is Blind and Crash Course in Romance. In all, Netflix’s in-house original content accounts for 55 per cent of hours watched, with licensed shows (such as Friends and Seinfeld) making up the rest.

However, the biggest surprise is that Netflix is putting this information in the public domain in the first place. The company has been historically coy with its data. That reluctance to provide detailed breakdowns of viewer metrics was a point of contention in the recent writers’ and actors’ strike. The unions wanted their members to be paid more for successful shows – but how could you tell hits from flops if Netflix and its rivals kept that info under lock and key?

The move towards a more open attitude towards data was part of a “continuum” as the corporation progressed to the next stage of its evolution, said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. Initially, he said, “It wasn’t in our interest to be that transparent because we were building a new business, and we didn’t want to give any competitors a roadmap. Creators liked it too because they were free from the pressure of ratings.”

Over time, though, Netflix’s black box-like stance on viewing numbers caused tension with producers and show-runners. “The unintended consequence of not having more transparent data about our engagement was it created an atmosphere of mistrust over time with producers and creators and the press about what was happening on Netflix.”

Netflix opened the door by providing a weekly “top 10″ run-downs of most viewed shows and movies. But the new data is far more comprehensive. Sarandos said. “So we’ve been opening things up [such as] with the top-ten list. And keep in mind we do share this data in even deeper detail with all of our creators.”

This new information vindicates Netflix’s strategy of signing lucrative deals with high-profile producers. For instance, Shonda Rhimes’s Queen Charlotte – a spin-off of her Regency romp Bridgerton – brought in half a billion viewing hours and ranked fifth on the leaderboard to the end of June 2023.

India Amarteifio as Young Queen Charlotte in Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. Photo / Liam Daniel, Netflix

Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer, for its part, had 64 million hours watched. That is impressive, considering it was released in September 2022. There must be some Meghan Markle fans out there, too. Her cheesy legal drama Suits clocked up 127 million viewing hours despite only returning to Netflix in June, the end of the period covered by the metrics.

The breakdown also provides an insight into Netflix’s logic for cancelling seemingly high-profile franchises. There was an outcry when it recently pulled the plug on steampunk fantasy Shadow and Bone. According to Netflix metrics, it was the 26th most-watched show globally, clocking up 192 million hours. However, further analysis reveals that a mere 10 per cent of the Netflix international subscriber base sat down to it. Hence, the decision to give it the chop.

For all the surprises, much in the list is predictable, however. The breakdown confirms that Stranger Things remains the Netflix juggernaut to rule them all. Its fourth season notched up 134 million hours in the first six months. Meanwhile, the original season has 78 million hours under its belt. That’s a solid showing, given that it came out seven years ago. Streamers such as Netflix may be forever looking to the future. But these results show that, even in this brave new world, you can always count on the golden oldies.