Netflix has introduced its inaugural biannual engagement report titled What We Watched, providing an unprecedented level of detail on viewership. Released in the form of a Microsoft Excel file on Tuesday, the report encompasses the hours watched for every title, both original and licensed, exceeding 50,000 viewing hours. While acknowledging the inherent disparity between episodic series and standalone films in performance comparisons, this marks the first comprehensive insight into viewers’ preferences on Netflix.
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The initial spreadsheet covers content eligible from January to June 2023, comprising 18,214 entries. Leading the pack is the first season of the action-thriller series “The Night Agent: Season 1,” amassing a substantial 812,100,000 viewing hours during the specified period. Following at a distance, the second season of the drama “Ginny & Georgia” secures the second spot with 665,100,000 hours. The top five also include the first season of “The Glory” (622,800,000), the debut season of “Wednesday” led by Jenny Ortega (507,700,000), and the limited prequel series “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” (503,000,000).
The list of movies is led by the Jennifer Lopez action film “The Mother,” claiming the top spot with 249,900,000 viewing hours and ranking at number 20 overall, amid a plethora of multi-episode series. Idris Elba’s “Luther: The Fallen Sun” secures the 26th position with 209,700,000 hours, while Chris Hemsworth’s “Extraction 2” occupies the 29th spot with 201,800,000 hours.
Beyond hours viewed, the spreadsheet includes information on each title’s release date and global availability. Notably, the lowest-ranked globally available item is the 2020 comedy special “Yours Sincerely, Kanan Gill.”
Netflix emphasizes that total hours viewed alone should not be the sole metric for gauging a movie or series’ impact. In its announcement blog post, the streaming platform asserts, “Success on Netflix comes in all shapes and sizes and is not determined by hours viewed alone. It’s all about whether a movie or TV show thrilled its audience — and the size of that audience relative to the economics of the title.”
Netflix aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding for viewers, creators, and industry observers by combining the new biannual spreadsheets with its existing weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists.
