Netflix shares its viewer data on top TV shows, movies for the first time ever

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LOS ANGELES - Netflix has finally shared viewership data on nearly all of its television shows and movies after years of resisting.

The streaming platform on Tuesday released a "What We Watched" report, which ranks what people watched over the past six months on the platform globally. The company said it will release updated reports twice a year.

The report, which is between January and June 2023, includes more than 18,000 titles — representing 99% of all viewing on Netflix.

"The Night Agent (Season 1)" was the biggest title on Netflix, garnering 812.1 million hours (or 33,837,500 days) of viewing time. "Ginny & Georgia (Season 2)" was second-most watched in the first half of 2023, receiving 665.1 million hours of viewing time.

The South Korean series "The Glory" ranked third with 622.8 million hours, "Wednesday" was fourth at 507.7 million hours of viewing, and "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story" rounded out the top five with 503 million hours.

FILE - The Netflix logo seen displayed on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos called the report "an important milestone for the company," noting how people have been asking for "more viewing information" over the past 16 years of streaming.

Historically, the streaming service has generally refused to release viewership numbers as it built the business while not wanting to give away data to potential competitors, according to Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos.

But the company in 2021 started releasing its weekly "Top 10" and "Most Popular" lists. Privately, it has also begun sharing more information with creators, Sarandos said.

"Over time, we have been getting increasingly more and more transparent about what people are watching on Netflix," Sarandos told reporters on Tuesday during a conference call.

But Netflix’s hesitation to not have more transparent viewership data has "created an atmosphere of distrust" with creators and producers, he said.

"This is the data that we use to run the business," Sarandos told reporters. "I’m the co-CEO of a public company, so sharing bad information has consequences."

Netflix said success on its platform "comes in all shapes and sizes, and is not determined by hours viewed alone." It noted how it considers some movies and TV shows "enormously successful" with both lower and higher hours viewed.

"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," the company said in an announcement of the report.

This story was reported from Cincinnati.