#Netflix Takes Big Data Transparency Step, Releasing Viewing Numbers for 18,000 Titles

Netflix has taken its biggest step toward data transparency yet with the release of an exhaustive list of viewing time on the platform in the first half of 2023.

The list includes worldwide viewing for more than 18,000 movies and seasons of TV (18,214, to be exact) between January and June. Those 18,214 titles all had at least 50,000 hours of viewing over those six months, encompassing about 99 percent of all viewing on Netflix, vp strategy and analysis Lauren Smith told reporters during a presentation of the data on Tuesday. It is the deepest dive into viewing that Netflix (or any other streamer) has ever made public.

Among the highlights: The Night Agent was the biggest title on Netflix in the first half of 2023, racking up 812.1 million hours of viewing. Season two of Ginny & Georgia was second at 665.1 million hours, followed by Korean drama The Glory (622.8 million hours). The company is using total hours viewed in this report as a way to measure engagement by its users rather than the “view” formula (total viewing hours divided by running time) it employs to compare titles in its weekly top 10 lists.

Original series and movies dominate the top of the chart, but Smith said the split between original and licensed titles was more even: About 55 percent of viewing was of originals and 45 percent was of licensed shows and films.

As for the timing of the data release, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the company has been on a “continuum” of becoming more transparent as its streaming business has matured. Early on, 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.”

Sarandos acknowledged, though, that Netflix’s lack of transparency eventually had the unintended consequence of “creating an atmosphere of mistrust over time.”

“This is probably more information than you need, but it creates a better environment for us, for the guilds” — who won some key concessions on data transparency in settling labor strikes this year — “for producers and creators, and for the press,” Sarandos said.

Netflix’s top 20 titles for the first half of 2023 are below.