Netflix has expanded its level of transparency on viewership with the launch of a bi-annual engagement report.

The document discloses how many hours a licensed or original Netflix title has been viewed globally over a six month period, from January to June of this year. More than 18,000 titles are included in the report, which rounds up by 100,000 hours.

The No. 1 viewed series during the six-month period was The Night Agent, which was filmed in Vancouver, with more than 816 million hours of viewing, followed by the second season of Toronto-shot Ginny & Georgia with more than 665 million hours.

During a call with reporters on Tuesday (Dec. 12), Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the bi-annual report is part of the company’s transition to providing more viewership data, which began with its Top 10 lists in 2021.

“The unintended consequence of not having more transparent data about our engagement was it created an atmosphere of mistrust over time with producers and creators and the press about what was happening on Netflix,” said Sarandos. “So we’ve been on this continuum of opening things up… and keep in mind we do share this data in even deeper detail with all of our creators.”

Lauren Smith, VP of strategy and analysis, emphasized that the report only covers a snapshot of time, and doesn’t include all-time viewership data. It also doesn’t take into account the runtime of a project, so films will generate smaller totals even if there’s a large audience uptake.

Sarandos said the streamer has no plans to publish regional-specific data “because it’s an enormous amount of intelligence for competition purposes,” adding that “local creators have enormous insights into that data.”

Cancon data

Despite the global scale of the report, it does contain a snapshot of information on the performance of acquired and commissioned Canadian series during the six-month period.

Season six of Spin Master Entertainment’s PAW Patrol landed among the top 100 titles in the report, garnering 149.3 million hours of viewtime. Season five saw 130.7 million hours, and PAW Patrol: The Movie totalled 77.2 million hours.

Another well-performing Canadian acquisition on Netflix was CBC’s Workin’ Moms (Wolf + Rabbit Entertainment; pictured). The seventh season, which premiered on Netflix on April 26, racked up 57.5 million hours of views, with the first season totalling 28.1 million hours. All seven seasons of Workin’ Moms were viewed for more than 10 million hours, coming to a total of 164.2 million hours of viewing for the series.

Looking at Canadian originals, The Imperfects (Nomadic Pictures) garnered 27.1 million hours of views. The scripted sci-fi series premiered Sept. 8, 2022, and was cancelled later that same year. Another concluded scripted original, Travelers (Peacock Alley Entertainment), brought in 19 million hours of views for its first season during the period, years after it launched on the service in 2016.

Unscripted originals that saw more than 10 million hours of viewership in the six-month time period were Drink Masters (marblemedia) with 12.1 million and Cook at all Costs (Insight Productions) at 10.8 million. Drink Masters first premiered on Oct. 28, 2022, while Cook at all Costs debuted on Dec. 16, 2022.

Image courtesy of CBC