Using 2-minute rule, Netflix viewership breaks ceiling with action, mystery
Netflix has shared the statistics for several of its top-charting series, movies, and documentaries recently. Notably, the OTT platform now calculates "two minutes" spent on a particular title as "one view" as against the earlier method of considering the accounts that viewed a minimum 70% of a TV show/movie. This disclosure is sure to lure many who've missed out on these trailblazing titles.
According to the viewership data, Chris Hemsworth's Extraction remains Netflix's biggest film to date. With a 6.7 IMDb rating, this film amassed 99mn views within the first four weeks of release on April 24. Hemsworth plays a mercenary who has to save the kidnapped son of an imprisoned drug lord. Charlize Theron's July release The Old Guard comes next with 78mn views this quarter.
Getting the July-September window advantage, Theron's film became the most popular Netflix title during the third quarter of the platform's earnings. The film revolves around a tussle between good immortal beings doing their deed in secrecy, disturbed by a bad, woken immortal. Meanwhile, Millie Bobby Brown's Enola Holmes has become the third most-viewed Netflix film with 76mn views since its September 23 release.
Enola Holmes revolves around Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes' sister, Enola, brought-up by a mysterious woman who deserts her child suddenly. After Enola Holmes come Project Power with 75mn views and The Kissing Booth 2 with 66mn views. True crime documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door is projected to receive 52mn views in the first 28 days, while The Social Dilemma bagged 38mn views.
Netflix quotes numbers that back the logic behind viewership information, as opposed to rival platforms such as Amazon Prime Video. Recently, Amazon applauded the popularity of its original series The Boys. Shying away from quoting statistics, the platform simply expressed happiness over The Boys becoming one of its most-watched original series. As mentioned, Netflix currently counts a 2-minute duration as "one view" across titles.
This means that someone watching any given title for two minutes at a stretch will have "viewed" the respective title, as per Netflix. Before 2020, one Netflix view got counted only if a subscriber watched at least 70% of the movie/series. Netflix then reshuffled its rule, citing YouTube and New York Times' metrics of determining viewer engagement, thus boosting its viewership numbers by 35%.
