Netflix Is Giving Us Top 10 Lists Now
by EG
Netflix is going to start making available lists of its "most viewed" titles. But given the streamer's very generous definition of what constitutes a "view" and its refusal to release any real viewership data, the legitimacy of the lists will be questionable at best. Will the lists just be a marketing tool for pushing the service's programming choices? Read on and decide for yourself.
Netflix is rolling out a feature designed to give users another way to discover new programming.
The streamer is introducing a top 10 list that will show the most popular titles on its platform. The list, which will reflect viewing in each country, will update daily and popularity will be calculated every 24 hours. In addition to the overall list, there also will be lists for the top 10 films and top 10 TV shows. Both original and licensed programming will be featured in the lists.
Although the lists will provide a new level of transparency around which titles are performing well on Netflix, the company is not releasing viewership data. The popularity of a title will be based on Netflix's new measurement system, which counts someone choosing to watch a title for two minutes as a view.
Netflix began experimenting with top 10 lists in Mexico and the U.K. last year and is now rolling the feature out globally. Content chief Ted Sarandos has previously commented that the lists are another tool for users to determine what they want to watch on Netflix.
In a blog post announcing the new feature, product executive Cameron Johnson wrote, "When you watch a great movie or TV show, you share it with family and friends, or talk about it at work, so other people can enjoy it too. We hope these top 10 lists will help create more of these shared moments, while also helping all of us find something to watch more quickly and easily."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
Do you think Netflix's top 10 lists will be helpful? Let us know in the comments below.