Earlier this week, Netflix released its first comprehensive report on viewing figures, revealing the most watched movies on the online streaming service: “Night Agent,” “Wednesday,” and “Queen Charlotte.” .

This gave producers a glimpse of the most successful films among subscribers. The streaming service has been criticized for its strict discretion over data, as it doesn’t even tell program makers how their shows are performing.

The company’s statement said: “We believe the information in this report will provide creators and our industry in general with an accurate idea of ​​our audience’s preferences.”

But the report leaves many questions unanswered.

Netflix’s rankings are based on viewing time, which is why the American FBI movie “The Night Agent” topped the list with 812 million viewers.

This is a reasonable measure, but it prioritizes some projects, and it has several drawbacks.

Where is the “Stranger Things” series?

The first thing we notice about the numbers released on Wednesday is that they are only for the period January to June 2023.

This partly explains the absence of some of its Netflix counterparts, such as “The Crown” and “Stranger Things,” because they don’t even appear on the top 50 list and they haven’t released new episodes. That time.

Instead, series from that era appeared in the top 20, such as “You,” “Ginny & Georgia,” and “Love Is Blind.”

List of 10 Most Watched Movies on Netflix from January to June 2023:

1-Night Agent, Season 1, 812 million hours watched

2- Ginny & Georgia, season two, 665 million

3-Glory, season one, 622 million

4- Wednesday, Season 1, 507 million

5-Queen Charlotte, 503 million

6-You, Season 4, 440 million

7-Queen of the South, Season Three, 429 million

8- Carolina Garcia, season three, 402 million

9- Ginny and Georgia, season one, 302 million

10- Fubar, season one, 266 million

Another reason why some popular movies don’t appear in the top rankings is because Netflix calculated the viewership rate based on the season of the series.

Reuters Netflix director Ted Sarandos and actress Jennifer Gamer at the “Stranger Things” series premiere

For example, the movie “The Crown” has the most watched episode in the first half of this year, in its fifth season, with 76 million hours, which ranks 153rd on the list of most watched films.

But if you include the first four seasons, its viewership jumps to 214 million hours, the highest on the list.

The same goes for “Stranger Things,” with a total of 347 million hours, which puts it higher than the 61st spot on the chart, which is only in its fourth season with 133 million hours.

If we take a closer look at total hours, we see another problem with the numbers.

Netflix said subscribers spent 812 million hours watching “The Night Agent,” topping its list of most-watched films.

If we divide that by the number of episodes by 10, we get an average of 81.2 million hours watched per episode.

But the duration of an episode of “The Night Agent” is 49 minutes, not a full hour. So, a simple calculation brings us to the conclusion that the average number of households that watched the film is close to 99 million.

What about movies?

Amidst these series, we find movies ranked unfairly.

The series is shown in multiple episodes and this gives it an advantage compared to a movie that is shown only once.

For this reason, the Jennifer Lopez-starrer “Mom,” the most-watched movie in its category, ranks 14th with 250 million hours.

This is a huge achievement for the film, but it only runs for two hours, so it cannot compete with “The Night Agent” which runs for 8 hours.

Because the running times of movies and TV series vary greatly, Netflix’s ranking becomes complicated because it doesn’t report the number of people who watched a particular show.

The second-ranked film in the first half of the year was “Luthor,” starring Idris Elba, with 209 million hours watched.

Because Luther’s show is over two hours long, this number can be cut in half, bringing the number of households that watched the film to around 100 million.

But even this calculation is not correct, because we have to assume that everyone who sees the film follows it to the end.

Some watched the movie till the end, but some may have changed their mind after 10 minutes. On the other hand, film lovers can watch it more than once.

Therefore, it is not possible to obtain reliable figures for the audience by estimating the audience for terrestrial broadcast programs.

No doubt these numbers are amazing and give an indication of the films that attract the most viewers, but they don’t provide details like viewing rates, so they give an “incomplete picture” of viewing rates.