Netflix further prized open the lid to its black box of data on Tuesday, with the streamer publishing a list of viewing figures for nearly 2,000 titles in its library.
The ratings dump covers the first half of 2023 and is measured as “hours viewed,” which departs from Netflix’s publication of “views,” the metric that it began using this year to rank its Top 10 lists.
Hours viewed puts shorter content at a significant disadvantage, while longer series (usually dramas) stand to benefit, but the figures do still offer a rare insight into Netflix subscriber behavior.
U.S. films and series unsurprisingly dominate Netflix’s list, with political conspiracy thriller The Night Agent topping the pile with 812M hours viewed. Little wonder Netflix renewed the series so swiftly.
The Brits were heavily represented, even if the first half of 2023 appeared a little light on new UK originals, with the likes of Sex Education, Beckham, Squid Game: The Challenge, and The Crown held back for recent months.
Leading the pack was feature Luther: The Fallen Sun, which had 209M hours viewed, securing it a top-20 place in the overall global ranking published by Netflix. A table of the top-ranked UK titles is below.
The Idris Elba drama was streaks ahead of rivals and its performance supports Barb viewing data out of the UK, which showed the movie had 3M viewers after its March premiere.
Season 6 of Black Mirror launched on June 15, meaning it only had two weeks to accrue 139M hours viewed. This trajectory suggests it will easily surpass Luther by the time of Netflix’s next disclosure.
Joe Cornish’s supernatural detective series Lockwood & Co was in the top 10 British shows despite being canceled after just one season — a sign that Netflix is becoming increasingly ruthless over renewal decisions.
There was also a place for the widely-admired Formula 1: Drive to Survive and UK producer Raw showed it could match the success of documentaries including The Tinder Swindler with its mini-series MH370: The Plane That Disappeared.
The evergreen Peppa Pig remains a favorite with families around the world, while The Crown showed it has a long viewing tail. Season 5 of Peter Morgan’s drama had 76M hours viewed despite premiering on November 9, 2022.
Reporting data in hours viewed gives no insight into how many accounts completed a title, or even engaged with it past the first episode. This is information that all streamers, especially Netflix, use to determine the success of their content.
