Netflix’s new show ranking system doesn’t change much

Netflix is ​​overhauling the way it calculates its top 10 shows and movies — but that doesn’t make the metric any more useful. Instead of ranking popular titles based on watch time, company now says It will rank them by “views”, which it defines as the number of hours watched divided by total runtime, As reported earlier by hollywood reporter,

As an example of its new system, Netflix says clearance 2 From June 12 to June 18, starring Chris Hemsworth, received 43 million “views” or 88.38 million hours, divided by a runtime of 2.07 hours. In other words, Netflix still isn’t disclosing how many people are actually watching content on its platform from start to finish, which, you know, would be more useful to viewers and advertisers alike.

Netflix says it made the change to ensure that longer titles don’t get an advantage over shorter titles and that it allows people outside the company to “compare the relative impact of movies and series without putting too much weight on their runtime”. “Should be allowed to do so. However, this new system still doesn’t really compare to disclosing the specific viewership numbers it says it will only provide to creators.

“Our hope is that by being consistent and transparent about what people are watching, Netflix can give everyone — consumers, creators, analysts, and the press — better insight into what success in streaming looks like more generally,” writes Netflix. “We’ll continue to share more detailed, title-specific data with creators, and as always, we’ll continue to listen to feedback.”

In addition to making this metric as vague as the previous one, Netflix is ​​also increasing the eligibility time for its most popular titles from 28 days to 91 days, or about three months. This means that the long-term performance of a show will affect its ranking. As a result of this change, Wednesdayhas passed the first season of stranger things 4 as Netflix’s most popular English-language TV show.

Netflix and other streamers have long been reluctant to share viewership data — a metric advertisers and content creators can use to determine what’s watching and what’s not — even though they keep all the numbers showing what people actually watch. I want

Disclosure: ledge Recently made a series with Netflix.