Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is calling on the company’s streaming competitors to be more transparent when it comes to releasing their viewership data.
“That is kind of an answer to the folks who were saying, ‘Hey I don’t really get to see how my stuff does.’ And I agree that was unfair,” Sarandos said during Fast Company’s Innovation Festival in New York City on Wednesday, referring to the writers and actors who went on strike last year. “So, this idea is that the number is out there so that talent can see it, so that agents can see it, so that the press can see it and know what’s a hit and what’s a miss.”
On Thursday, the streamer will release viewership figures for its top shows as part of its biannual data dump. Sarandos said the company saw 94 billion hours of Netflix-watching in the first half of the year, an increase from previous reports. It will also demonstrate that “the biggest movies of the year are these movies that are made for Netflix and only playing on Netflix.”
“I don’t think we could be any more transparent than that,” he added. “I’m hoping that the other folks in the business will follow suit on that.”
Sarandos’ comments come as Netflix plans to stop disclosing quarterly subscriber figures as it shifts to a focus on engagement starting in the first quarter of 2025. It will also no longer report average revenue per member (ARM) figures.
He argued that subscriber figures are less relevant to its revenue and profit numbers given that it’s launched multiple tiers with different price points and that “engagement probably is the core metric.”
However, the streamer, which reported 277.65 million subscribers in its latest quarter, will continue to offer subscriber figures when they hit certain milestones. And Sarandos expects that number to double in size with the introduction of more live programming and the company’s upcoming NFL games on Christmas Day.
In Nielsen’s Gauge report for August, Netflix had a total share of 7.9%, down .5% month-over-month. Meanwhile, YouTube continued to dominate with another platform-best TV share of 10.6% in August — the largest year-over-year difference for any streaming platform and an increase of 1.5 points.
Looking ahead, Netflix previously said it would focus on capturing the more than 80% of screen time that neither Netflix nor YouTube has today.
To grow its share, Netflix is ramping up its games offering with plans to launch one new title per month. It will also premiere a multiplayer game based on the “Squid Game” universe later this year timed to the launch of the show’s second season. It’s also testing a new TV homepage design to provide more visible title information, such as synopsis, genre and ratings, and larger and more dynamic title previews with trailers and bigger box art to make browsing easier. And it plans to simplify the navigation bar and move it to the top of the page to create quicker, easier shortcuts while adding its My Netflix feature currently available on mobile.
Netflix shares, which are trading around $688 per share, are up 74.6% in the past year, 46.9% year to date and 11.3% in the past six months.
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