Introducing a new monthly ranking: “Netflix Top 20 Global TV Hits”
Does the TV industry need another ranking? Of course it does. Since 2021, every Tuesday Netflix has been publishing four weekly rankings for the top 10 TV seasons and Films, both in English and that great universal language, “Non-English.” Crucially, for those 40 lucky titles (10 per ranking), we get to know their Global Viewing Hours, the metric Netflix sees as the most important sign of engagement.
Then in December 2023, Netflix wowed the world by releasing Viewing Hours for 18k titles, accounting for nearly all their worldwide viewership in the first half of 2023. For that report, they ranked all titles, regardless of language or type (TV or Film), by global viewing hours. Over the last four months we have been combining that data set with others and finding surprising insights for the benefit of our clients and the industry.
But are we to twiddle our thumbs until Netflix releases the next comprehensive batch of figures, possibly in June? Hardly. Today, we’re unveiling the “Netflix Top 20 Global TV Hits,” a new monthly ranking based on viewing hours and derived from Netflix’s weekly Top 10s.
First, let’s acknowledge our list’s shortcomings. To make comparisons easier and faster, our ranking will always be based on the four weeks leading to the last Sunday of each month, so by definition our “monthly” global viewing hours for any title will be lower than actual. We will also be unable to add viewership from any week where a title dropped off the Top 10, even though it had some viewership. And our methodology will tend to favor new releases. For example, if a library show is consistently ranked 11th–15th every week, it should be a Top 20 for the month, but our methodology won’t include it because we don’t have that data. Finally, we’re focusing on TV seasons only, since duration is a driver of Viewing Hours, making comparisons between Films and TV unfair.
Another caveat about any monthly ranking based on Viewing Hours: they’re influenced by release dates. A show that launches early in the month will have more time to accumulate viewership than one launching in the last week. Similarly for a weekly ranking, a show that launches on a Monday has a big advantage over a show that launches on a Sunday.
Now, look at the upside. Today is Wednesday, April 3rd, and you’re finding out which were the top 20 TV shows on Netflix globally for the month of March — their global viewing hours, their length, production houses and language of original production. All of that for free! And looking back at the monthly rankings from last year (which I recreated for the sake of comparison), those top titles figured prominently on Netflix’s “What We’re Watching” six-month report issued much later.
Without further ado, it’s my pleasure to introduce the first (BETA) issue of…