It’s been about a month since the several-month-long strike by screenwriters and actors ended in Hollywood. They were caused, among other things, by non-transparency on the part of streaming services, which did not share viewership data with creators and could thus avoid paying them bonuses or corresponding royalties. Now Netflix, which has been criticized for this very problem for several years, released global viewership data more than 18 thousand titles from the first half of this year. There are several surprises among the most watched ones.
The total numbers are interesting in themselves, truly respectable. Netflix revealed viewership statistics for exactly 18,214 movies and series seasons, which is said to comprise about 99 percent of the streaming service’s total library. It has long been known that in terms of the scope of the offer, no one else can compare to Netflix, but in such absolute numbers the difference is even more striking. Even more staggering is the total number of hours people have spent watching shows on the streaming service. In the first six months of this year, this value exceeds 100 billion hours.
The most successful title ever was the first series of the action thriller Night Agent. The series which introduced the young and inexperienced an FBI agent in pursuit of uncovering a conspiracy in the highest circles of American politics, received only slightly above-average reviews, nevertheless attracted a huge audience around the world. Viewers spent a total of 812.1 million hours watching it, and Night Agent also became the sixth most-watched English-language series in Netflix history in its first month since its release.
Night agent“>
Among the series, the thriller Night Agent dominated
In second place among the biggest hits of the first half of 2023 was Ginny and Georgia, a comedy-drama about a young mother and her two children trying to start over moves to a new city after the death of her husband. However, Georgia’s past begins to catch up with her quickly. Viewers spent 665.1 million hours watching the second season of Ginny and Georgia. In third place with 622.8 million hours was the Korean drama Glory about a woman who takes revenge on former classmates for bullying. Fourth is the first series Wednesday with 507.7 million watched hours, despite the fact that the series was released last fall.
The action thriller Matka, starring Jennifer Lopez, became the most watched film she portrayed a former elite soldier, who leaves behind mountains of bodies of people threatening her daughter. Although the film did not excite critics or viewers, it has 249.9 million watched hours. In second place among films was Luther: Fallen from Heaven with 209.7 hours, followed by Deliverance 2 with 201.8 hours.
Conversely, interesting information is what people don’t watch on Netflix. For example, the streaming service recently announced that it is canceling the fantasy series Light and Shadows after two series. We now know that the second series has racked up 192.9 million hours of viewing from its release in mid-March to June, good enough for it to rank 26th among the most-watched titles. However, according to the management of Netflix, this is not enough performance for a probably quite expensive series.
At the very end of the list is the category of titles for which there is absolutely minimal interest, which apparently corresponds to 50 to 150 thousand hours of total viewership. This includes 3,813 shows, which is about a fifth of the streaming service’s total library. However, in many cases it may be series or films available only in one country, only licensed from elsewhere and aimed at a very specific audience, so it is not always necessarily a flop – just as millions of hours do not necessarily mean a hit.
In order for the public or journalists to really evaluate for themselves how the streaming giant approaches its business in terms of buying shows or producing them, the budgets would also have to be known. Still, just viewing viewership on this scale is a big shift from when Netflix only published weekly rankings of the top ten titles — and not even that a few years ago. But above all, from report called “What We Watched”which the company wants to publish every six months, should benefit the creators.
They, with the possible exception of the big obvious hits, had absolutely no insight into how their shows were doing. A few weeks after their release on Netflix, they could only wait in suspense to see if the company would give them the green light for a sequel or not. If not, they were often given a vague explanation that the title did not meet the price/performance expectations.
Light and shadows it had a fairly good viewership, but it wasn’t enough for Netflix”>
Fantasy Light and Shadows had a fairly good viewership, but it wasn’t enough for Netflix
Even creators or actors from successful series often faced the problem of non-transparency. All they knew was that viewers were interested enough in their work for Netflix to demand more. But without concrete numbers and context, their agents couldn’t negotiate new contracts with better fees that would truly match the artists’ financial contribution.
Current Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the company’s increasing transparency is a natural part of its growth. At the beginning, on the contrary, it was not in her interest to publish many statistics: “Because we were building a new business and we did not want to provide our competitors with a plan. It also suited the creators because they weren’t burdened by the pressure of viewership numbers.” However, Sarandos also acknowledged that over time, lack of transparency also had the negative effect of creating mistrust.
Of course, the new report does not solve all the problems connected with remuneration of artists. This is to be ensured by the recently signed new cooperation agreements between production companies and screenwriters or actors, which ended the aforementioned long-lasting strikes.
2023-12-16 19:06:40
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