A new feature, which the netflix the streaming service announced in its quarterly earnings report, could point subscribers to a list of most popular films and series to help make their choices. These proposed Top 10 lists are planned to be deployed as a test in the UK before potentially being expanded in other territories.
These collections of most-watched programming might help give additional context to the platform’s unveiling of selective viewership numbers, which continued to be released as part of the report. Following up previous assertions surrounding the number of viewers for “You” after it landed on the platform and three-week totals for its original film “Bird Box,” Netflix claimed that 52 million households had viewed its new film “Triple Frontier” in its first month of availability.
On the TV side, Netflix points to viewer totals as high as 45 million for its original series (and hopeful budding superhero franchise) “The Umbrella Academy” over its initial four weeks. That’s up from the 40 million it projected for the Gillian Anderson-led series “Sex Education” at the time of releasing information on “You.”
Back during the clarification surrounding the “Bird Box” numbers, a representative for Netflix explained to Variety that an account qualified as having watched the film “only after a view surpassed 70% of the total running time including credits,” but that this method “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.” It appears that a concrete explanation of the platform’s viewership methodology for series was not highlighted along with this most recent round of numbers.
There’s no guarantee the top 10 list will stick around after Netflix has finished testing the feature, with Hastings stating that, “After a few months we’ll decide whether to end or expand the test.”
Netflix’s already presents a list of top trending shows on its home screen, however, in this instance the shows and movies listed are all personally curated for each user based on their viewing history. It will be interesting to see how the overall list varies, and how the online conversation surrounding the feature evolves after the test kicks off in the coming months.
