Netflix is finally giving people more insight into what they are watching.
The streaming giant on Tuesday unveiled its first biannual "What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report," which covers six months of streaming habits on the platform. The report “covers more than 18,000 titles — representing 99% of all viewing on Netflix — and nearly 100 billion hours viewed,” it said in its news release.
From January through June, season one of the action thriller "The Night Agent" topped the list, with more than 812 million hours viewed, Netflix said. Season two of the comedy-drama "Ginny & Georgia" came next, with 665.1 million hours viewed; then season one of "The Glory," with 622.8 million hours viewed; season one of "Wednesday," with 507.7 million hours viewed; and "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story," with 503 million hours viewed.
Both the actors union SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America fought for more viewership data transparency as part of their negotiations with the studios amid the recent strikes. The writers strike ended Sept. 27, and the actors strike ended Nov. 9.
Netflix's co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the strikes were not the main factor in releasing the report.
“This has been on a continuum for several years,” he said on a media call Tuesday, a spokesperson for Netflix confirmed. “So this is not driven by anything differently than that. I think it’s really important; that’s why I did say earlier that lack of data, lack of transparency, the unintended consequence was this kind of mistrust, this environment of mistrust around the data. So this is probably more information than you need, but I think it creates a better environment for the guilds, for us, for the producers, for creators and for the press.”
The data includes the hours viewed for every title — original and licensed — watched for more than 50,000 hours, as well as the premiere date (for any Netflix TV series or film) and whether a title was available globally. It does not note how many accounts watched something, nor does it show any geographic data.
In its release, the company called the report "a big step forward for Netflix and our industry." Since 2021, it has released weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists. But the report offers some of the most extensive audience viewership information any streamer has released to date.
"We believe the viewing information in this report — combined with our weekly Top 10 and Most Popular lists — will give creators and our industry deeper insights into our audiences, and what resonates with them," Netflix said.
